WOEKS BY THE SAME AUTHOE. 



Historical Studies. One vol. 12mo. 1850. 

Biographical Studies. One vol. 12mo. 1860. 

Nathanael Greene: an Examination of some Pas- 
sages in the IXth Volume of Mr. Bancroft's " His- 
tory of the United States." 8vo. 1866. 

The Life of Nathanael Greene, Major-General 
in the Army of the Revolution. Three vols. 8vo. 
1871. 



HISTORICAL VIEW 



AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 



BY 



GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE, LL. D., 

T iTF NON-RESIDENT PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY, 

AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF MAJOR-GENERAL NATHANAEL GREENE, ' 

"the GERMAN ELEMENT IN THE WAR OP AMERICAN 

INDEPENDENCE," ETC., ETC. 



•' As to tliose however, who shall desire to have a clear view of past events, and 
indeed of future ones (such and similar events being, according to the natural course 
of human affairs, again to occur) i for those to esteem them useful will be sufficient 
to aus.wer every purpose." Tiux-vdides, Book I., c. cxxii. 



FOURTH EDITION. 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON. 

187G. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the jear 1865, by 

ANNA M . GREENE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts 






PRINTED BT H. 0. HOOOIITON AND COmPANI, 

rivkrs:pe i>p.b:ss. camuridok. 



9i 



TO CHARLES BUTLER, 

OF NEW YORK. 

My deak Mr. Butler: — You know the history of 
this volume. You know, also, of my other studies in the 
field of our Revolutionary History, and my hope to con- 
tribute something more to the just appreciation of the great 
men it produced. You will not, therefore, deny me the 
gratification of connecting your name with my labors by 
this public expression of the respect and affection with 

which 

I am, most truly. 

Your friend, 

GEO. W. GREENE. 

Greenesdale, February 2, 1865. 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 



The following pages were written in the dark- 
est hour of the War for the Union. Unable to 
take an active part in the contest, and unwilling 
not to put my convictions upon record, I gave 
them expression in these pages. They have met, 
I am told, a general want, and I gladly offer them 
anew in this Centennial Edition. 

To make them more acceptable in a class-room, 
if they should find their way there, I have added 
to them an Analytical Table of Contents. 

G. W. G. 

Wind Mill Cottage, 

East Greenwich, R. I. 
April 1, 1876. 



PREFACE. 



THE following Lectures were written for the Lowell 
Institute of Boston in 18G2, and read before it in 
the January and February of 1863. A part of them 
was also read before the Cooper Institute of New York 
in March and April of the same year. Relating to a 
past of great present value, they have already, I am told, 
done some good ; and I publish them in the hope that, 
in a more accessible form, they may do still more. No 
nation can neglect the study of its own history without 
exposing itself to the danger and disgrace of repeating 
past errors. No statesman can confine his attention to 
the present, without losing sight of the principles from 
which the present grew, and thus becoming a groper in 
the dark, instead of a trustworthy guide. 

It is impossible to read our history without seeing 
that we, like aU other historical nations, have been con- 
trolled by general laws. It is a universal law that 
every principle works out its own development; and 
hence, as an inevitable corollary, if you accept the prin- 
ciple, you must sooner or later accept its consequences. 
Our Puritan forefathers claimed freedom of judgment 
for themselves, and founded their Colonies that they 
might have a home of their own to exercise it in. But 



^ 



vi PRE FA CE. 

they failed to see that what was true for one was true 
for all ; and the dark pages of their history are the 
pages which record their fruitless struggle with the 
fundamental principle of their own institutions. 

It is a principle of English law, that the King cannot 
take the subject's money without the subject's consent. 
Denying this principle, England attempted to tax the 
Colonies through the Imperial Parliament instead of 
the Colonial Assemblies, and lost them. Appealing to 
this principle, the Colonists claimed the right to dispose 
freely of the fruits of their own labors, and established 
their claim by the War of Independence. But they 
failed to see that, if the principle was true, it was true 
as a law of universal humanity, and therefore must 
sooner or later demand and obtain universal application. 
And this failure to accept all the consequences of the 
accepted principle left the bitter and bloody war — 
hella plus quam civilia — through which we are now 
passing as a part of their legacy to their children. 
"Will not history say that wise statesmanship should 
have foreseen this as a logical sequence, and consistent 
Christianity should recognize it as the act of that divine 
justice which could not have imposed the obligation of 
personal responsibility without according the right of 
personal freedom ? 

The conduct too of the War of Independence is full 
of lessons. More than half its waste of blood, treasure, 
and time was caused by the want of an efficient general 
government. What a comment is the history of the 
civil government of the Revolution upon the doctrine 
of State rights ! When Washington, in his proclama- 
tion of the 25th of January, 1777, called upon those 



PREFACE. vii 

who bad accepted British protections to give them up 
and take an oath of allegiance to the United States, a 
delegate from New Jersey, Mr. Abraham Clark, con- 
demned his proclamation as " exceptionable in many 
things and very improper " ; adding, with an air of in- 
finite condescension, " I believe the General is honest, 
but I think him fallible." Has not the present war 
given rise to many accusations which history will record 
with the same wonder and disgust with which she 
records this ? 

Another cause of the profuse exi^enditure and pro- 
tracted sufferings of the War of Independence, was the 
neglect to raise an army for the war when popular en- 
thusiasm was so high that the ranks might have been 
filled with hardly any effort but that of making out 
the roll^;. If I were to copy from "Washington's and 
Greene's letters all the paragraphs against short enlist- 
ments and temporary levies, I should fill a volume. 
Have we not seen the lesson blindly and fatally neg- 
lected ? 

A copy of Washington's letters in every school and 
disti'ict library of the country, to serve as a text-book 
in clubs and debating societies, and a manual for public 
men in every department of civil and military adminis- 
tration, would do more for the formation of our national 
character, would stand us in better stead in difficult 
emergencies, and furnish us more appropriate examples 
of that wisdom which we need at all times, than any 
other source to which we could go for guidance and 
counsel. A careful study of them by our statesmen at 
the beginning of the present war would have saved us 
thousands of lives and millions of treasure. 



\ 



viii PREFACE. 

" Why have the fathers suffered, but to make 
The children wisely safe? " 

I have not attempted to give my authorities for tlie 
statements and opinions contained in these Lectures, 
for the form of Lectures does not achnit of it; and if my 
purpose m publishing them is reached, they will carry 
the reader directly to the original sources. But I can- 
not permit them to go forth into the world without 
acknowledging my obligations to the able and trust- 
worthy volumes of Mr. Hildreth, to the judicious and 
accurate Annals of Holmes, and to that admirable series 
of publications by which Mr. Sparks has connected his 
name indissolubly with the history of our Revolution. 
Force's Archives unfortunately cover only the first two 
years of the war; but for those years they leave nothing 
to be desired. What a disgrace to the administration 
of 1853, and its immediate successor, that such a work 
should have been suspended, and the exhaustive re- 
searches and wonderful critical sagacity of such a man 
lost to historical Uterature, by the arbitrary violation 
of a solemn contract. 

In using Gordon, I have often felt the want of the 
critical edition which was promised us some years ago 
in the name of Mr. George Henry Moore of the New 
York Historical Society. In using the Journals of 
Congress, I have constantly had occasion to regret the 
awkward separation of the secret journals from the main 
collection, and the want of a new edition based upon an 
accurate collation of the original manuscript, and com- 
pleted by the insertion in their proper places of the 
fragments of debates and speeches that are scattered 
througli the works of Adams, and Jefferson, and Gou- 
verneur Morris, and other members of that body. 



PREFACE. ix 

Among the other sources from which I have drawn, 
I would particuhirly mention the documents in De Witt's 
valuable woi-k upon Jefferson, and the elaborate Life 
of Steuben by Mr. Kapp. Since these Lectures were 
written, this profound and careful writer has published 
in German two other works which bear upon my sub- 
ject, — " The Life of DeKalb," and " The Trade of 
German Princes in Soldiers for America." I will not 
say with Vertot, mon siege est fait ; but I have felt in 
reading them that, if they had reached me before my 
own work was v/ritten, I might have enriched it by new 
and important details. I trust that these valuable con- 
ti'ibutions to our history will soon be made more gener- 
ally accessible to American readers. Mr. Kapp has 
proved by his Steuben that he writes English well 
enough to be his own translator. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE. 

Greenesdale, Newport, 
February 2, 1866. 



CONTENTS. 



Lecture Pagk 

I. The Causes op the Revolution ... 1 

II. The Phases of the Revolution . . 33 

m. The Congress of the Revolution . . 67 
IV. Congress and the State Governments of 

THE Revolution ..... 104 

V. Finances of the Revolution . . . 137 

VI. The Diplomacy of the Revolution . .173 

VII. The Army of the Revolution . . . 210 

VIII. Campaigns of the Revolution . . . 245 

IX. The Foreign Element of the Revolution 282 

X. The Martyrs of the Revolution . . 320 

XI. Literature of the Revolution. (Prose.) 357 

XII. Literature of the Revolution. (Poetry.) 389 



APPENDIX. 

Chronological Outline ...... 44!> 

Statistical Tables 449 

Address to General Greene 458 



AI^ALTSIS 



HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE AMERICAN 
REVOLUTION. 



LECTURE FIRST. 

CAUSES or THE REVOLUTION. 

The Revolution a decisive epoch of civilization 

No good true Republic in existence, when the American 

Republic was formed ..... 

The Republics of Europe. Holland ; Venice 

Genoa ; Lucca ; San Marino 

The Monarchies contrasted with them ; Prussia ; Russia 

Austria ........ 

Enghmd ; Spain ; France 

The feudal system in antagonism with modern ideas 
The dependence of the American colonies on England a 

natural one 

The colonists thoroughly English in their sympathies 
All tliese changed in a few years .... 
The Revolution eclipsed for a time by the events which 

followed it 

Impartiality of History 7 

The Revolution viewed in this light both a cause and 

effect 7 

What was the cause 1 8 

Two classes of canses 8 

First, in the colonial system 9 

Reverence for law a national characteristic ... 9 

The spirit of English liberty an animating principle of 

the colonists 9 

The spirit of English liberty defined and traced to its 

origin . . . . . . . . . 10 

Its form when transported to America . . . .10 



XIV ANALYSIS. 

The Xavigation Act, the first interference of Parliament 

with colonial rii;-lit.s . . . . . . .11 

The feelinas which it awakened .... .12 

After this the relation between England and her colonies 

a business relation in her eyes . . . . 12 

The feelings caused by this relation among Americans . 13 
Anecdote of Attorney General Seymour illustrating the 

English feeling . . . " 13 

English ignorance of America a second cause . . 14 
Alienation caused by a lack of appreciation . . .14 

English conceptions of the colonies . . . . 15 

Their thoughts of investment and gain, not brotherhood . 15 

Their unfavorable opinions of America and Americans 16 
Their treatment of the American traveller . . .17 

Alienation a result of the.se prejudices . . . . 17 

The nature of municijial institutions a third cause . . 18 

The European colonial system a false one . . . 18 
Freedom of the English system an advantage over other 

systems 18 

Importance of municipal institutions in the history of civ- 
ilization 19 

The colonists' form of municipal institutions English . 20 

A separation in time inevitable from these three causes 20 

Two more causes ........ 20 

England in her dealings with the colonics at war with her 

own political .system 21 

England ojipressed by debt 21 

Enghuid's misfortune, adopting an erroneous system and 

adhering to it ....... 22 

Possibility of .a reconciliation before 1763 . . . .22 

Part of George III. in the contest .... 23 

The course of the English tax-payers during the war . 24 

The dispute a question of constitutional rights . . 24 

Effects of this . 25 

Many steps before actual war 26 

American feeling of dependence vague and undefined . 27 

All (picstious discussed in the colonies .... 27 

Alienation a slow process ....... 28 

The American struggle in connection with the state of 

European politics ....... 29 

The Treaty of Paris and its results . ... 30 

The course of French and English statesmen contrasted 30 



THE SECOND CLASS OF CAUSES. 

A great question sure to be agitated .... 31 

The colonial question a great one 31 

A now principle of government 32 



ANALYSIS. XV 

Air nations agitated by the contest 32 

The interests at stake 32 

The American Revohition a war between natural and 

hereditary rights 32 

LECTURE II. 

THE PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 

Recapitulation of Lecture 1 33 

The first colony and the first league .... 33 
The growth of the colonies and their relations to the 

mother country 34 

Their relations to each otlier ...... 35 

The first iuterference of the home government . . 36 
Position of England toward the colonies during the com- 
monwealth ........ 36 

English estimation of the Act of Navigation . . .37 

The thirteenth clause 37 

Tlie object and spirit of the Act 38 

The enumerated commodities 40 

The King's claim on Maine woods 41 

Its results 41 

The feelings of the colonists in regard to this claim . 42 
The contest between Maine lumbermen and royal survey- 
ors and its consequences 43 

A law in violation of public opinion a fatal error in Leg- 
islation 44 

An effect of the Act of Navigation on the colonists . 45 
The effect of the reservation in the new Massachusetts 

charter ......... 45 

The ways by which England drives the colonies to seek 

independence 46 

A new phase, the French and Indian war . . .47 

The action of the colonists. The Congress at Albany . 47 

England's great opportunity 48 

Her misuse of it and the result 49 

A critical moment ........ 49 

A separation inevitable and foreseen by men of intelli- 
gence .......... 50 

The wisest course for England 51 

Another phase, aggression and resistance Grenville's 

policy 52 

The Stamp Act 52 

Its Repeal. A reconciliation still possible ... 53 
The " Declaratory Act." Townshend's Resolutions and 

their spirit 53 



xvl 



A NA L YSIS. 



'I'lid I'cliil.ivn |Mi'<iUip|i iiC l.lid l,\v() coiiiil.iicn 

.U(l^i^tllrl(•(l II lllK'itM.iil.y ....... 

J'liirii'k llciii'v'rt UrMoliiiioiiH mill lln! " DiM'lanil.ii.n d' 

Kij'lil.H " liy ( 'i)ii;',rrMH ...... 

'I'lirir inlliii'iiri' im Aiiiiric'iiiM ..... 

'I'lin riiiiiiiil ilri'liiiiilioim 111' liiiili ciiiiiilricH ill iTj/urd hi 

t.llXlllioil ......... 

'I'Iki yXllHriiliM ()|iiiiiciil rdiiliiiiicil liy IIciii\'h I^^H^I||I iollH 

iiiiil lliit Di'i'liiiniioii III' jtinlili . ' . 

AnnrnMsidii on liii', piul of Imi/^ImikI mrl \>y Ifi'lajinliim mi 

tint iiiirl, of AiiiiMiru ...... 

A Itrili-li j^finiMun in Ito.ilini iiml llir nITiicl, 

'Mm 'I'liA mi Icii iiliil llir ito^l.mi " lr:i |,iul.y " 

Tlic, ( 'miiinillDCM 111' ( 'onrMpmiiliMiin 

Tlu'ir ri'MiillH. 'I'lin IiihI. |iliiiw (if ihc K'l'volnl.imi 

Kii);r(^l, 1)1' iiiiiny AinrriraiiH ill, llm Hi|iiiriiJimi. rn'iiain 

l.imiH I'or vviir . ...... 

Tj<ixin|;imi ......... 

'I'ifi)iiili>ri>;.'ii ........ 

'rim iiiivuiiilimi iircmii|)li.'tliril ..... 

MiMlakiiH (III iiiiili Million ii(. Ilm lii'^inniii); nl' liii^ uar . 
.Kii'Mt. |iiM'i(iil (if (,lio war. VViiHliiiiv,l.mi'H ri.Mi in |inlilic tm 

li'i'in ......... 

HriliMJi |il:in lor IH77. A cri.si.M ..... 

How l.iin pian \h rniHtrali-il ..... 

Tlir I'lilnnininH an'iiiiiHl. VVaHliin;;l.on .... 

JMh ruriilriilion of till) (•almniiicM and snpicmar}' 

Tim ri'siills nl' liis Hiipri'iiuicv mnl MinrHscH . 

'riin Aiiicrinui poMilion viinvrd rrmn ihn pniMcnl, and a 

(•mili'iiiporai'v Hiaiid poini, ..... 

SiM'oiiil period; III!' ra.inpiii)',ii in lln^ ( 'iiroiiim.H 

'I'lic (■anipai,"ii in Viri.',inia ...... 

Appoinlnnni <,{' K'dju'ii Morris a.M linainiir 

'I'lit! niiiiiiiiidri (if Ilm war ...... 



.•i:( 



:.r, 



r)t; 

.')7 






.'I'.i 
(II) 
I'.I) 



r>i 

l'>.'l 
(>! 

r>i 
ii.'i 
r.f) 
f.r) 

(iC) 



M<;(!'riiKi'; iii. 

'I'lM'j riiNHiticMM 111.' riir; k i;vi)i.iriioN. 



llriid' rccapiliiialioii of Imi'Iiht II .... . i')? 

Thn lifvolnlimi di'liimil US 

Till' IIi'mM 'un^'ri'.HS, ilH rmaniiiimi and oliji'cl, . , . C.H 

Till' Alhaiiy ('mi);i(SM of IV.M ..... I'.',) 

IliiporlMiii'o of Ilm iiiiiiiii ....... 70 

'I'lio int'ii will) ronipiLSnd llii.i ('mi)j.rt'.MM and llin cliaracl.rr 

of I'Viiiiklin ........ 70 

Fniiiklin'M opinioii.s, at. thai lime, coiu'iu-iiin;; iiidcpi'iidoiico 7 1 



A NA L YSfS. xvii 

Ili'i pliMi i>r Ihiliiii ........ 71 

'V\\o jiliui roiiilriiiiKMl liv l'rii\'iiici:il,4 ;mi(I Hriloim . . 71 

WcHiiIlM 1)1' llic ('i>ii;;n^ss oC Allwiiy .... 72 

The N(nv York ( 'oiii^ross of I7(i,'>. 'I'lic iii.iiiiuu- of issiiinp: 

tlio cull for it. !iii(l t.lu< iiiiswiT to llu; call . . 72 

Il,>4 milJioril.y mid oUJccl. 73 

l(s iiii|>uil;uicc .shown liy iJiii condilioii of tlic comilry . 74 

Sonic of I lie iiii'iiilicr,>< coiiiposin;;' it. . . . . . 7.5 

The l.iiH' ol' Ihc pclilioiis 8(Mit; to lOiiLi'liuiil ... 7.") 
'I'lic coiilciils of t.lic pclilioll .><ciit to the Kiue' . . .70 

l'(<tilioii,-< sent, (.o the two hoii.'^es of raiiiaiiieiil . . 77 
'I'lie (leclanition of KJelils anil ( J i'i("v:iiiccs . . .77 

'I'lic Coneress (liH,>4olvcil ....... 78 

'ril(« Congress of 1774. Its ol.jecl ami I he call for it . 78 

Our ieiionuice of its dchaies ...... 79 

Its mcetine', the viu'iety in the nianner of appointment of 

its inemhiM's ........ 80 

'The orea.ni/.alion, pl•(^^idcllt and secn'lary . . .80 

The lirsl. liMnhh> in rej.vard ti> the inaniier of votine; . 81 
I'atiick Ih'iu-y ni\t'S up his opinion, the ([uestiiin settled 

temporarily ........ 81 

(^onurcss opened liy prayiu' . . . . . .82 

(^umniittetvs appointed to draft a. Kill of IJieht.s and tt) re- 
port on the statues of eomnieree . . . . 8.'5 

'I'he d(>leeiitcs from Mjissaehnsel ts on their JcMirnev ami 

in the {\>nercss ........ 8.T 

(>i)inions id' >arious memhers about their rights . . 84 

Tlie e-rcal end of the (\>n<rvess attained .... 8."> 

iloseph lialloway's plan defeated ..... 85 

The woi'U aecoiMplished ....... 86 

The eh.'UiK'ti'r of the Kill ot' Kiiihls eivon hy Chatham . 8G 
The ae'rt>on\ent of nou-iinporl.ilion, iion-e\|)ortation, and 

iiiiii-eoiismuption, !U>d opinions reeanliiie- it, . , 87 

Oon-i're.ss dis.solviHl haviiiij' !ieeom|ilislud its ohjeet . . 88 

Attempts to hri^>t^ the i\»emhers 88 

Opinions on the situation ....... 88 

A new Compress eoiiveneil amlil siirriiie- events . . 89 

The place of iui<e(ine' ....... 89 

'riio luhor to he done and the liitlieultics to Ije eiieoun- 

tered DO 

All th<<ir delihi>r;itious hriue- them HOiirer iiulopoudoiieo iU 
Their opinions in res^ard to resistjineo diviilod . . 91 
Hopes of a reeoueiliatiou oiuso lluetuiUions in their coun- 
cils 92 

Oivisiou o( opinion eoneernine- the oponing- of tho ports . 9.? 

Uisputes ahout thisipiostion . . . . . . 93 

Tho pn>^ios!vl to arrest ilan-^^rons persons ounally onibar- 

rtisiine- ■ . .94 

h 



xviii ANALYSIS. 

Rhode Island's proposition to build ,i navy adopted after 

much delay 95 

Measures for the cneouraffcment of manufactures, agricul- 
ture, the arts aud S('ienc(^s passed .... 96 
Congress petitions the King for the last time . . .76 
It assumes full powers aud denies the royal proclamation 

that its nieuihers are rebels . . . . .96 
Resolutions of noii-assistauco to British officers passed . 97 
England's course drives them to independence . . .97 
Extract from the letters of John Adams. ... 98 
A resolution for the institution of State Governments in- 
troduced .... 98 

The Preanible added giving the grounds of the resolve . 99 
Another extract from a letter of .John Adams . . 99 

The C'olonies authorize their delegates to vote for inde- 
pendence ......... 100 

Discussions of the Resolutions of inde])endency and the ap- 
pointment of a connnitteii to jn-epare tlie declaration 100 
A Committee apointed to pre])are a form of Confederation 

aud one to phui treaties witii foreign powers . . 101 

The discussion of the 1st of .luly 101 

The Resolution of iudependeiicc passed July 2d . . 101 
The Declaration of lnde])endt'nce signed July 4th . 101 

Its rece])tion by the i)coj)le of the colonies and of the 

Avorld 102 

Our estimation of it 102 

LECTURE IV. 

CONGRESS AND THE STATE GOVERNMENTS OF THE 
REVOLUTION. 

Recapitulation of Lecture III. 104 

Appearance of unanimity in the councils of Congress IO.t 

Internal dissensions aud jealousies . . . .105 

Greatness aud weaknesses often joined in the same mind 106 
Connnittees apointed . . . . . . .107 

The difficulty of obtaining a true estimate of the Confed- 
eration . . . . . . . . .107 

Various alliances and confi'derations .... I118 

The diflVreni'e of the relations of citizen aud state in an- 
cient and modern times . . . . . .109 

The theory of the source of authority and the id(\i of of- 
fice as shown by tlie Italian Kepublics . . . 109 
Importance of this ])riiu'ii)le aud the errors of the Con- 
federation from disregarding it . . . .110 

The course of Congress from the Declaration to the ac- 
ceptance of the Confederation by the states . .111 



ANALYSIS. XIX 

Conprcfss criticised by the people and not entirely acquit- 
ted by Plistory Ill 

'Wasbin<;:ton occupies the place in popular affection for- 

merl}^ held by Confjress . ... . . . 113 

Coujj^ress driven I'roin place to place . . , .114 

It loses some of its best members . . . . 114 

The place it is entitled to in our esteem .... 115 

The Kiui:; the source of autliority in all the various forms 

of ])roviMcial f^overiinieut ...... 11.5 

Anotlier principle checking the King. The rights of 

Englishmen . . . . . . .116 

These rights characterized and specified . . . 117 
The result of these rights — a free government . .117 

Division of ])owers long famili;ir to the colonists • 118 
Outlines of the English Constitution preserved in all the 

colonies ........ 119 

The results of these facts after the separation . .119 

The ptissige from the old to the new a critical moment 120 

Perplexities regarding the Mnssachusetts clnirter . . 121 
Instruction of Congress to New Hampshire about her 

i'orm of government ....... 121 

New constitutions adopted in several states . . . 122 

Detects in the constitutions remedied .... 122 

The authority of the constitutions derived from the peo- 
ple 123 

Nearly all preserve two houses of the legislature . 123 

Jealousy of the chief magistrate a common feature . 124 

Religious clauses in the constitutions common . . 124 
Educational provisions few . . . . . .125 

Property restrictions of suffrage 126 

The transmission of real estate. Entails abolished . 126 
The only material change the substitution of the people 

for the King 127 

Suspicion of the central power natural . . . 127 

Evil results of this jealousy ...... 128 

Difficulty between General Greene and the South Caro- 
lina legislature . 129 

General Greene compelled to advise the legislature again 129 

Contents of his letter .... . . 1.30 

Its unfavorable reception by the Governor and Assem- 
bly 131 

The Governor offers an insult to Congresf? through its 

General 131 

General Greene's course in tlie affair .... 132 

His report to the Secretary of War . . . ,133 

The proofs of jealousy about Congress many . . 134 

The men who iiidulgtid in it . . . . . . 134 

A strong central power required by the law of society 135 



XX ANALYSIS. 

The history of the Civil government of the Revolution 

the liistory of a struggle against this principle . .135 

LECTURE V. 

FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 

Introduction 137 

Difficulty of attaining the proper standard of historical 

judgments 138 

The undeveloped state of political science at the time of 

the Revolution ... .... 139 

Our more enlightened state 140 

Our fathers ]irevented by present perplexities from see- 
ing future difficulties . . . . . .141 

Early history of traffic in America. Buying wives with 

tobacco 141 

A pernicious principle, the power of the government to 

regulate prices 142 

The issue of bills of credit by Massachusetts, and its evil 

effects ... 143 

The fact established that government paper can for a 

time take the place of money 144 

Continental money issued by Congress . . . 145 
Probable course of the debate which preceded this step . 145 
Difficulty of their position, the accusation of rashness re- 
futed 146 

Discussion as to the responsibility of the bills . . 148 

The form and denominations decided upon . . . 149 
A committee appointed to attend to the engraving and 

printing of the bills 150 

The scarcity of paper and engravers . . . . 1 50 
Paul Revere one of the engravers . . . .150 

The execution and signing of the bills . . . 151 

The demand for the money urgent 152 

The money soon gone — fresh issues . . . . 152 
The war protracted — twenty millions gone before the 

Declaration of Independence .... 153 
Depreciation begins — a loan resolved upon . . .154 

Tlie loan insuffiuieut — a lottery voted . . . 154 

The immorality of lotteries not recognized at this time . 155 

The lottery unsuccessful 155 

A fresh i:ssue directed 156 

The depreciation continues — the public alarmed — a tax 

voted 156 

The difficulty of collecting the tax . . . . 157 
The tax inadequate — more paper money . . .158 



ANALYSIS. XXI 

Expedients to revive national credit tried lu vain . 159 

Speculation and luxury prevalent 160 

John Jay appointed to make an appeal to the states. . 160 

The figures which he exhibited to them . . . 161 
He states the resolve of Congress not to exceed in issues 

two hundred million dollars 161 

He gives the three causes of depreciation . . . 161 
His argument proving the inclination of Congress to re- 
deem its issues 162 

His closing ap])eal 162 

The tronhle complicated by State debts and paper money 163 

A new cxjiedient — redemption and reissue . . . 164 

Public spirit sinking — an unhealthy state of society . 164 
Failure of crops — riots and mutinies . . . .165 

Agriculture and commerce crippled — speculation active 165 

1781 arrives brinuing French and Spanish gold . . 166 
The Confederation accepted. Robert Morris appointed 
financier and Congress votes to return to a specie 

basis . 167 

Another blow at paper money in Pennsylvania. . .168 
Robert Morris' fitness for his position — he establishes a 

bank 169 

The history of American finances after this less interest- 
ing though as important . . . . . .170 

Measures of M(jrris he is blamed; but unjustly . 170 

A parting glance 171 

Errors of Congress and of the people, and their conse- 
quences . . . . . . . . .171 

Could they have been aroided ? 1 72 

LECTURE VI. 

THE DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

Washington and Franklin the great names of the Revo- 
lution 173 

Importance of the French alliance . . . . 173 
Franklin, his character, studies, and ambitions . .174 
His philanthropy and philosophy . . . . 176 
France dcej)ly wounded by the Treaty of Paris and long- 
ing to revenge herself 177 

French emissaries in the Colonies — their vigilance and 

their reports to Versailles . . . . . 178 
De Kalb one of the emissaries — his activity and far- 
sightedness 179 

Choiseul's projects and the suggestions of his agents . 180 

He is overthrown by intrigue . . •. . . 181 



xxn ANALYSIS. 

The probable course of events h.ad he remaiued iu power 181 
Vergeniies does not try to interfere in American affairs, 

but is compelled to act 182 

The new jrower in France — public opinion favorable to 

the colonists from desire of revenge on England and 

love of humanity 183 

The Ibrmation of this public opinion an important part of 

lMirt)|)eau civilization ...... 184 

Anotlior French agent sent to America. England suspi- 
cious *. . 18.5 

The Committee of Secret Correspondence and its members 18.5 
Franklin's diplomatic experience — his questions to l)e 

Bonvouloir 186 

His corrcs])ondence with Dumas 187 

Two parties iu Congress on liiplomatic policy — the one 

in favor of seeking treaties ])revai]s . . . .187 
Agents appointed by the Committee of Secret Corrc- 

s])0ndence . . . . . . , . .188 

Difficulty of olitaining a recognition of independence — 

Franklin the only one competent to do it . . . 188 

His arrival and reception 189 

His life, occupations, vigilance, and dangers . . . 190 
His associates Deane and Lee ; Lee's disparagement of 

Franklin aided by Kalpli Izard .... 192 

State of affairs upon Franklin's arrival. The opening of 

negotiations 19.3 

Franklin perceives the policy of France. His objects 193 

Franklin enabled to honor tlie drafts of Congress upon 

himself and his colleagues 195 

Summer of 1777. Franklin's confidence. The news of 

Germantown and Burgoyue's surrender. Its result 

— the first treaty 196 

The hall in wiiich the treaty was made . . . .196 

The significance of the scene 196 

Franklin's confidence justified by the liberal terms of the 

treaty 198 

A rage for treaties prevailing in Congress . . . 199 
Jay's character and trying situation in Spain . . 199 

Spain's policy 199 

Important European events 200 

Dijjlomatic relations with Holland. A treaty obtained . 200 
Covert intrigues defeated by Franklin's integrity . 201 
Diplomatic relations with Germany and Russia. John 

Adams' iiKlej)endi'nce ...... 202 " 

England standing alone. The principle at stake on her 

part 203 

The internal state of France. She desires peace as 

much as her rival 204 



ANALYSIS. xxm 

Overtures for peace. Americii's claims .... 205 

Franklin's colleap^ues and their course . . . 205 

Preliminary articles signed after many delays . . 207 

Franklin's delicate position 207 

The treaty finally signed 207 

Pecuniary aid rendered to America by France . . 208 

Franklin risks his own fortune. His economy . . 208 

for one hour of Franklin ! 208 



LECTURE VII. 

THE ARMY OF THE EEVOLTTTION. 

The remembrances which this title awakens. The vet- 
erans of the Revolution 210 

The English misled by a false belief that the Americans 

were cowards 211 

The materials for an army in the colonies. Prominent 

military men 212 

A grave dilficulty. Can a necessary degree of subordi- 
nation he obtained 1 213 

The people j)repare for the war. A characteristic illus- 
tration 213 

Massachusetts militia. Timothy Pickering, clergyman, 

in the ranks 214 

Massachusetts takes steps toward the raising of an army 215 

The army gathering . . . . . . . 215 

An instance in Rhode Island 216 

The need of a warning . . . . . . 216 

The fundamental error. Short enlistments . . .217 

Need of a commander-in-chief . . . . . 217 

Congress induced to accept the army .... 218 

Candidates for commander-in-chief. Washington ap- 
pointed 218 

Plan of the army 219 

Heart-burnings and jealousies 219 

Washington takes command. His head-quarters . 220 

The strength and state of the army .... 221 

The scene around Boston 222 

The feelings of the Americans. A war-hymn . . 222 
Winter ajiproaching. The soldiers longing for home. 

Their privations ....... 223 

Washington's measures. Reorganization of the army 224 

Various opinions about the army. P^rrors of Congress . 225 

The army disbanding. Washington's dangerous position 227 
Enlistment of a new army. The arms of the discharged 

soldiers retained 227 



XXIV ANALYSIS. 

The chan.e:e accomplished 228 

Record of the army of '75 228 

Deeds of the army of '76 ..... . 229 

Necessity of disciplined troops, — disadvantag-cs of ,<hort 

enlistments and inefficiency vf militia . . . 229 
Congress endeavors to repair its error in vain . .231 

Lack of discipline and ]ir()])er e(pii])inents in the army 232 

Baron Sicuhcii reforms the tactics of the army . . 233 

Tlie wiiolc nnnd)cr in the army ..... 235 

The <ireat privations of the soldiers, their labors and 

prospects 235 

Condition of tlie officers 236 

Mntinies few and easily qnelled 237 

Conurcss nnjnstly jealons of the army .... 238 

After much delay it votes the officers half-jiay for life 239 

The qncstion a<;:iin revived ...... 240 

The " Ncwburg Letters " and Washington's treatment 

of them 241 

The half-pay comnmted to five years' full pay . . 241 

The disbanding of the army ...... 241 

Its ungrateful treatment by the country . . . 242 
Difficulty of getting justice done the survivors by Con- 
gress ' . 244 



LECTURE VIII. 

THE CAMPAIGNS OF THE ItKVOLUTION. 

Dependence of success in war npoii the general . . 245 

The history of a war an individual history. Examples 245 
This true of the Revolutionary war. Washington, Gates, 

and Greene 246 

The military genius of Washington .... 246 

The Revolution lacking in j)hysical grandeur, — but full 

of moral grandeur ...... 247 

Tlie great principles of warfare shown in the Revolu- 
tionary war 247 

Washington's claim to greatness proved . . . 248 

The campaign of 1775. Washington's labors . . 249 

The problem before him 249 

A idockade begun. Lack of munitions and engineers 250 

Fortifications erected 250 

Washington's vigilance. Skirmishes. The decisive blow. 

The city evacuated . . . . . . .251 

Tlie campaign of 1776. The defence of New York. 

Washington compelled to give up the city . . 252 

The retreat after the battle of Long Island . . . 253 



ANALYSTS. xxv 

Untrustworthiness of the urmy 253 

Miuueiivros around New York. The retreat through the 

Jerseys ......... 254 

Howe tliinks liimself secure in possession of New York 

and tlie Jerseys ....... 255 

Washington crosses the Dehiware .... 255 

Campaign of 1777. Movements around Trenton. Bat- 
tle of rrinec'ton 256 

Washington's winter-quarters at Morristown . . . 256 
Howe embarks his troops. Washington's i)Osition . 257 
The English ('nter the Chesapeake. Battle of Brnndy- 
wine. Manoeuvres after it. The enemy occupies 

Philadelphia 257 

Battle of (icrmaiitown. Howe endeavors in vain to force 

Wasliington to a battle 258 

Valley Forge. Steuben disciplines the army . . 259 

1778. Battle of Monmouth 260 

Events of the next two years ..... 260 

1781. Washington plans an attack on New York. It is 

prevented by British reinforcements . . . 261 
Washington suddenly proceeds against Coruwalhs. Seige 

of Yorkt(jvvn ........ 261 

The Northern army. Episodes of the three campaii;ns. 
Arnold's march through the wilderness. Montgom- 
ery's death. Sullivan's retreat. The laurels un- 
justly awarded to Gates 262 

England's opportunity — the campaign of '77. Bur- 
goyne's advance. Schuyler opposes him. Burgoyne 
desperate. Gates tal^es command of the Americans. 
Stillwater. Bemis' Heights. Burgoyne's surren- 
der 26.3 

The original plan. How it was frustrated . . . 265 
Lee's treason and its results. How it was discovered . 265 

The Southern campaigns 266 

British uniformly succes>ful till 1780. Their position . 267 
The country nearly dep<>])ula,ted ..... 267 
State of the American army when Greene takes com- 
mand 267 

Gates' plans. Greene changes them. His difficulties . 268 
Greene moves his camp, constructs batteaux, establishes 

depots, etc 269 

Cornwallis reinforced. Greene detaches Morgan . 270 

Cornwallis perplexed. He sends Tarleton after Morgan 271 

Battle of the Cowpens. Cornwallis' advance . . 271 

Morgan's motions. Greene's retreat. Cornwallis foiled. 

He issues a proclamation. The Americans after 

him again. Greene's manoeuvres. His dangerous 

position. His vigilance. An anecdote . . 272 • 



xxvi ANALYSIS. 

The battle of Guilford Court House. Retreat of the 

Eritish 275 

Greene pursues hut is deserted by Ins militia . . . 276 

Greene iidvanees into South Carolina. Cornwallis goes 

to Wilmiugtou 277 

Greene advances on Camden. Battle of Ilobklrk's Hill. 
Camden evacuated. Other forts taken. Siege of 
Ninity-Six. The siege raised. The enemy with- 
draw 277 

Greene on the hills of Siinteo. Battle of Eutaw Sjirings. 
The enemy driven from Dorchester. Washiugion's 
conuneudation ....... 278 

Strategic skill of Washington and Greene comjjared 

with tliat of other great ficnerals .... 279 

Other uauK'S : Sulli\ an, Kiiox, Lincoln, MacDoujiall, 
Olney, Angell, Christopher Greeue, Williams, How- 
ard, William Washington, Marion, Henry Lee, Mor- 
gan, Wayne 280 



LECTURE IX. 

THE FOREIGN ELEMENT OF TUE REVOLUTION. 

The subject interesting though difficult from lack of sta- 
tistics. A conjecture of the number of foreign pri- 
vates 282 

The ])rop<)rtiou of foreign officers .... 283 

The usefulness of these officers 283 

An American's stake in the war. Difficulty of deciding 

how far foreigners should be trusted . . . 284 
A glance at the state of society in Europe. The suprem- 
acy of France 285 

Local attachnicnts changed to personal ones. Instances 285 
The attachment to the sovereign. How it is destroyed 

in France 286 

State of public feeling in France at the time of the Rev- 
olution 287 

Abundance of mercenary officers and soldiers . . 287 

Varieties of character among them .... 288 
I'osition of these men in time of i)eace .... 289 
The Ameiican war a Go(l>send to these mercenaries. 

Many come to America 289 

Some act as sjiies for the European jjowers . . 290 

American officers alarmed at the claims of these men. 

Jealousy of promotion 290 

Embarrassment of Congress 291 



ANALYSIS. xxvii 

The want of engineers. Duportail, Laimoy, Radi^re 

and (iouvion eni^aged. Their services . . . 292 
Thomas Conway arrives and is made brigadier-general. 
The plot against Washington. Couway writes to 
Gates. Tile contents of tlie letter reach Washington. 

His conduct and that of Gates and Conway . . 293 
Troublesome pretensions of foreigners. Fleury at Stony 
Point. DeKalb's death at Cauulcn. Washington's 

connnendation of the Chevalier Armand. Pulaski . 296 
Kosciusko's introduction to Washington. His services 
in the northern army. His usefulness to General 

Greene. His after life, deatii, and burial . . 297 
The great names of the subject, Lafayette and Steuben. 

Their great services ....... 298 

Points of reseinl)lance in tlu'ir chaiMcters . . . 299 

]>afayettc's early life, ])rospccts, and education . . 300 
Steuljen's early life, education, and military experience 

during the Seven Years' War . . . • . 300 
His life from the peace to the breaking out of the Amer- 
ican war 302 

He is persuaded with difficulty by tlie Prcncli minister to 

come to America 303 

His arrival 304 

The romantic manner in wliich Lafayette came to Amer- 
ica. His noble sentiments 304 

His attachment to Washington and studies in the camp . 306 
The hard work of an American general . . . 307 
The po])ularity of Lafayette in tiie camp . . . 307 
American dislike of France and Frenchmen , . 307 
Position of American statesmen in regard to France . 308 
Lafayette's services in removing prejudices and promot- 
ing harmony of action between France and America 309 
His iulliicnce in hastening the treaty .... 310 

His services in France and Spain 310 

His services in the field and his jilaee in American history 311 
The state of affairs in America upon the arrival of Steu- 
ben. His motives for coming . . . . .311 

His footing with his brother officers .... 313 

His friendship for Washington 313 

Defects of the American army in evolutions, inspection, 

and returns 314 

The task of Steuben to remedy these .... 314 

He adapts his plan to the army 315 

He drills Washington's body-guard. Its effect . . 315 

His metliod and its success 316 

His reforms in other departments . . . . 317 

His services .318 

Their reward 318 



xxvui ANALYSIS. 

LECTURE X. 

THE MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 

Unknown martyrs. Imperfections of history. The aid 

of tlie sister arts needed . . . ' . . . 320 

James Otis. His popularity 321 

His studies, taleuts and character 322 

His hibors and sacrifices 323 

His health fails. He is assaulted. His madness . . 325 
Josiah Quiucy. His studies and tastes. He becomes a 
champion of his country. The Boston Massacre. 
Difficulty of finding counsel for the soldiers . . 326 
Quincy defends them. A test of mor;d courage. . . 327 
His health foils under his labors. The necessity of send- 
ing- a delegate to England 328 

Quincy chosen. His recej)tion and labors . . . 329 

His health again breaks down 330 

A messent;er to America needed. Quincy knowing his 

danger accepts the mission . . ' . . . 331 
His courage, sud'erings, and death .... 331 
Samuel Ward. His services in Congress. Ho dies at 

his post. His resting-place ..... 332 
Martyrs in domestic life. James Caldwell and his wife. 
His eloquence and dangers. The enemy approach- 
ing. Mrs. Caldwell remains. Her murder. His 

murder. Their grave 333 

Cruelty of the British 336 

The heroism of our civil martyrs and the benefit of keep- 
ing them in remembrance 336 

The memory of Joseph Warren and his death . . 337 
Nathan Hale. His character and sentiments . . 338 

He enters the army. His services while there. A spy 

needed. Hale volunteers and cannot be dissuaded . 339 
He is arrested and condemned. His bruttxl treatment 

and noble death 341 

A parallel between Hale and Andre. Its injustice . 343 

The guilty motives of Andre. The innocence of Hale . 344 

Isaac Hayne. He is ea])tured as a prisoner on parole. 

He is compelled to acknowledge himself a British 

subject, and is summoned to take arms contrary to 

agreement " . 346 

Greene's advance. Hayne considering himself freed from 
his allegiance takes command of an American regi- 
ment and is captiu-ed 347 

His execution 348 

The indignation it awakened. Greene's oflBcers ask for 

retaliation. Their address 349 



ANALYSIS. XXIX 

Retaliation made unnecessary . . . . _ . 350 

Tlio thousands of martyrs in jails and prison-ships. 

Their sufferings . . . . _ . • ■ 350 

A case taken. The capture. Sufferings in the guard- 
house. The niarcii to tlie shore. The Jersey. Tor- 
tures of the first night ...... 351 

From this picture the spirit of our martyrs shown . 355 



LECTURE XI. 

LITERATURE OF THE REVOLCJTIOK. 

PART I. — PROSE. 

Revolutions favorable to the cause of literature by awak- 
ening intellectual activity ..... 357 
Revolutions to be favorable must receive their impulse 

fiom the depths of men's hearts .... 358 
The questions that take possession of the heart everlasting 358 
Instances of revolutions followed by epochs in literature 358 
The intellectual portion of the American Revolution 

founded on reason rather than feeling . . . 358 
Not new theories but old ones carried out . . . 359 
An instance. Jefferson's maxim .... 360 

Reason, not imagination, the guide . . . . .361 
The character of the Revolutionary literature derived 

from this fact 361 

Benjamin Franklin. His ambition to become a good 

writer 362 

An extract from his writings showing his method to at- 
tain this object . 362 

Two jioints regarding this extract .... 364 

Franklin's style 364 

His humor and satire 365 

His position affords an ample field for his genius. His 
" Edict by the King of Prussia." His " Rules for 
reducing a great Empire to a small one." Extract 

from the latter 366 

The piece written on his death-bed 369 

John Dickinson. His education and success as a law- 
yer. His first publications. He is elected to the 
Congress of 1765 and drafts its resolutions. His ad- 
dress to the committee of correspondence in Barba- 
does. Extracts from the preface and opening para- 
graphs 370 

His next work " The Farmer's Letters." The advan- 

tagi'S of their form and character .... 374 



XXX 



ANALYSIS. 



A passage from one of them 375 

The reception of the " Letters " abroad .... ,375 

Their success at lionie . . . ' . . . . 375 
He is a member of the Congress of 1774 and writes many 

of the papers of that body 378 

His error. lJefutatit)n of tlie charge rliat he refused to 

sign the Declaration of Independence . . . 378 
The remainder of his public life and writings. His death 380 
Points of resemblance and contrast in the style of Dick- 
inson and Adams 381 

Jefferson's style 382 

John Jay's style. An example. Difficulty of finding a 

parallel to it '. . . 383 

Alexander Hamilton. His precocity and early writings. 
His connection with Washington's official correspond- 
ence 384 

Other writers. Otis, Quincy, Thomas Paine, Hopkinson, 

Samuel Adams, Livingston, Richard Henry Lee . 385 

Our neglect of these precious legacies .... 386 

The newspaper press ....... 387 

The debates in Congress 387 

The patriot preachers 387 



LECTURE XIL 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 



PART II. — POETRY. 



General character of the Revolutionary poetry. The 

lack of fancy " . . . 389 

English poetry at this time 390 

Timothy Dwight. His services. The estimation in 

which he was held ....... 390 

His " Conquest of Canaan " and " Greenfield Hill." An 

extract 391 

Joel Barlow as a man . 393 

The opinion of his contem])oraries concerning him . 394 

His " Vision of Columbus." Its publication. Extracts 

from it 394 

The weakness of the verses 396 

His faults as a poet. His best poem .... 397 
David Humphreys. His verses. His personal expe- 
riences and opportunities for poetical description . 397 
His fault as a {)oet. A lack of vividness . . . 400 
His " Address to the Armies of America." Contempo- 
rary reviews of it 401 



analysts: xxxi 

Curiosity a cause of his success 402 

The openino- lines 402 

Hi:< description of the Battle of Lexington . , , 403 

Of Bunker Hill and Washington .... 404 

Other extracts ........ 405 

Humphreys considered especially the poet of the Revolu- 
tion ". . . . . " 406 

Phillis Wheatley. Freueau ..... 407 
The humorous poets more successful. John Trumbull. 

His serious poems. Specimen .... 407 

His satire compared with that of Butler .... 409 

" The Progress of Dulness." " MacFingal." Its success 409 

An outline of the plot and extracts .... 410 
The opening. MacFingal's origin. His second-sight 

and eloquence ........ 412 

The town and place of meeting 412 

The moruing session 415 

Adjournmeut for dinner . . . . . . 417 

The afternoon session . . . . . . .417 

The liberty pole. The tight. The sentence and its exe- 
cution 42.3 

The meeting of Tories by night 426 

Other points of the poem 428 

Its reception 428 

Songs and ballads of the Revolution .... 427 

A specimen " The Dance " 429 

Other ballads. " Clinton's Invitation to the Refugees" 430 
Final specimens, " The Battle of the Kegs " and the ballad 

of Nathan Hale 432 



CONCLUSION. 

History the record of man's acts and the interpreter of 

God's will 437 

Comparison between the Revolutionary War and the 

War of the Rebellion 437 

Every responsibility carries a corresponding right . 437 

Person;)l freedom a result of personal responsibility , 438 
The war of the Rebellion a logical sec[uenee of the war 

of Independence ....... 438 

The two wars alike iu origin, in the practical lessons 

they convey and in errors ..... 438 

Errors uf our fathers compared with ours . . . 439 

Our peculiar error . 440 

An illustrative anecdote 441 

As they conquered by perseverance, endurance and faith, 

so we must conquer by the same means . . 441 



ANALYSIS. 



APPENDIX. 

Chronological outline 445 

Ameiicivu Colonial Trade 449 

List of aeneral officers at the commencement and close 

of tlic Kevolutionary War , . . . . 452 
Statement of troops furnished by the respective states 

during the war 454 

Force that each state furnished for the regular army . 455 

Expense of the Kevolutionary War .... 455 

Emissions of Continental IMouey 456 

State Expenditures and Balances 457 

Address to General Greene ...... 458 



LECTURE I. 



THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 

THE subject to which I have the honor to in- 
vite your attention is one of those events 
which are sometimes overshadowed for a while by 
the magnitude of their own resuhs ; but which, 
when time enough has passed to give them a proper 
distance, and show the extent and variety of their 
ramifications, take their place among the decisive 
epochs of civilization. When the thirteen Colonies 
of Great Britain dissolved their connection with 
the mother country, and determined that they 
would henceforth have a government of their own, 

— a government of the people and for the people, 

— the name of republic had almost become a by- 
word and a reproach. The United Provinces were 
fast yielding to the selfish pretensions of the House 
of Orange, and the monarchical influences by whicli 
they were surrounded. Venice — an oligarchy 
fi'om her cradle — was dying, as oligarchies die, 
enervated and corrupt beyond the power of regen- 



2 LECTURE I. 

eration, Genoa and Lucca were but names on the 
map, asking only to be forgotten Avhile they Hved 
the passive and aimless lives of beings who have 
survived all the associations that make life a bless- 
ing. While San Marino, still preserving in her 
little territory of seventeen miles square the spirit 
which had carried her unchano;ed through twelve 
centuries of comparative independence, seemed a 
Kving confirmation of the favorite doctrine of mo- 
narchical publicists, that republics, to be durable, 
-must be small, industrious, and unpretending. 

While the incapacity of the people for self-gov- 
ernment seemed thus to have been set in the strong- 
est light by the failure of every people that had 
undertaken to unite it with material development, 
the power of man to govern man, both with an 
absolute and a limited authority, seemed to have 
been set in a light equally clear and equally strong. 
The Seven Years' War had shown what a small 
state can do against fearful odds, when its resources 
are developed and applied by a man of genius. 
Russia was still pursuing, under Catharine, the ca- 
reer of internal improvement and external ex- 
pansion which she had begun under Peter. The 
throne of the Hapsburgs had never appeared 
more firmly rooted, nor their crown more dazzling; 
and the hand which the young Emperor, emulous 
of philosophic renown, held out to his people, was 
the hand of imperial condescension. Never, too, 
had England been so powerftd abroad, or so pros- 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 3 

perous at home ; and never befoi'e had so much 
happiness been diffused over so wide a space, under 
any form of government, as was diffused over her 
vast possessions under her aristocratical monarchy. 

Spain, it is true, had fallen into a deep sleep. 
But the brief career of Albcroni, within the mem- 
ory of men still living, had shown startled Europe 
how much vitality was slumbering, imdreamed of, 
in the lethargic mass ; and how much a single will 
may do when it is an intelligent and a strong one. 
And if France excited any doubts in the minds of 
thoughtful partisans of monarchy, was there not 
enough in her profane philosophy, in her infidelity 
under the garb of formal devotion, and her hisane 
trifling with all that was venerable and sacred in 
human as well as in divine things, under the spe- 
cious pretext of philanthropy, to explain the deg- 
radation of a power which had more than once 
given laws to the continent ? 

But beneath this smooth exterior tliere was an 
internal fermentation, a feverish restlessness, a 
longing, vague in the beginning, but growing eveiy 
day more definite, and even breaking out at times 
in energetic protests and warnings of deep signifi- 
cance. To those who had read history aright, it 
was evident that that natural harmony which makes 
form the spontaneous expression of substance, ena- 
bling yoti to iiiterpret the inner life by the outward 
manifestation, and which reconciles anomalies and 
contradictions by voluntary concessions and ready 



+• 



4 LECTURE 1. 

adaptation, was lost forever. The vassal gave 

grudgingly, as an extortion, the labor which his 

father had given cheerfully as his lord's unques- 

1 tioned due. The peasant hated the noble who 

i trampled down his grain with his dogs and horses, 

and forbade him to fence out the hares and rabbits 

/ who ate with impunity the vegetables which he 

I had planted and tended for the food of his children. 
The merchant dreaded monopolies ; the manufac- 

( turer dreaded new edicts ; industry in every form 

L feared interference and repression under the name 
of protection and guidance. The man of letters 
sighed for freedom of thought ; the lawyer, for an 
harmonious code ; the rich man, for an opportunity 
to employ his wealth to advantage, and make him- 
self felt in the world ; the soldier, for promotion by 
service ; society, through all its classes, for the cor- 
rection of abuses, which in some form or other 
were felt by all. Two worlds, two irreconcilable 
systems, stood face to face, — the Middle Ages, with 
ideas drawn from the convent and the feudal castle, 
and the eighteenth century, with ideas drawn from 
the compass and the printing-press ; and every day 
the gulf between them grew wider and deeper. 

But in the thirteen Colonies of British America 
there was no such contradiction between the gov- 
ernment and the people. There Avere no Middle 
Ages to efface ; no feudal abuses to correct ; nc 
institutions Avhich had outlived their usefulness, to 
tear up by the roots. They had been accustomed 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 5 

from the beginning to regulate their domestic 
affairs according to their own conception of their 
interests ; and they were contented to leave their 
foreign affairs in the hands of the mother country 
in return for her protection. But they felt that 
that protection was no free gift ; that the restric- 
tions which they accepted for their commerce and 
manufactures transmuted every shilling which the 
English treasury expended on their behalf into 
pounds of profit for the English merchant and 
manufacturer. Dependence in this form they could 
submit to, for, though sometimes pushed to the 
verge of oppression, there was no humiliation in 
it. It was the dependence of the industrious 
child upon the thrifty parent ; a habit outliving 
the necessity vrhence it sprang. And they had too 
much of the English love of precedent and Eng- 
lish reverence for law about them to wish for any 
changes which did not seem to be the necessary 
consequence of acknowledged facts. They loved 
their mother country with the love of children, 
who, forsaking their homes under strong provoca- 
tion, turn back to them in thought, when time has 
blunted the sense of injury, with a lively recol- 
lection of early associations and endearments, — a 
tenderness and a longing not altogether free from 
self-reproach. To go to England was to go home. 
To have been there was a claim to especial consid- 
eration. They studied English history as the be- 
ginning of their own ; a first chapter which all 



6 LECTURE I. 

must master thoroughly wlio would understand 
the sequel. England's literature was their litera- 
ture. Her ffreat men were their great men. And 
when her flag waved over them, they felt as if the 
spirit wliicli had borne it in triumpli over so many 
bloody fields had descended upon them with all 
its inspiration and all its glory. They gave Eng- 
lish names to their townships and counties ; and 
if a name had been ground enough to build a pre- 
tension upon, more than one English noble, who 
already numbered his acres in the Old World by 
thousands, miglit have claimed tens of thousands 
in the new. They loved to talk of St. Paul's and 
Westminster Abbey; and, with the Hudson and 
the Potomac before their eyes, could hardly per- 
suade themselves that the Thames w.is not the first 
of rivers. 

More especially did they rejoice to see English- 
men and converse with them. The very name 
was a talisman that opened every door, broke down 
the barriers of the most exclusive circle, and trans- 
formed the dull retailer of crude opinions and stale 
jests into a critic and a wit. 

In nine years, — years fall of incident, and which 
passed so rapidly that the keenest eye was unable 
to see what a mighty work they were doing, — 
all this was changed radically and forever. The 
I thirteen Colonies became thirteen United States, 
Avitli a name and a flag, and allies, and a history of 
their own ; great men of their own to point to, 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 7 

great deeds of their own to commemorate, and the 
recollection of common sacrifices and a common 
glory to bind them together. And scarcely had 
this great change been completed when the French 
Revolution came ; and then for a time the splendor 
of the Ameincan Revolution seemed to have been 
eclipsed by the variety and magnitude of the events 
,which followed it. Men forgot, as is their wont, 
what their fathers had done, that they might mag- 
nifv their own achievements. Their eyes were too 
much dazzled by the meteors that were flashing 
before them, to feel the full force of the clear and 
steady light that was shining on them from the past. 

But History forgets not. In her vast treasure- 
house are garnered all the fruits and all the seeds 
of civilization. At her aAvful tribunal men await 
in silent expectation, face to face with their deeds. 
She assigns to each his place, apportions to each 
his reward ; and when the solemn moment arrives 
wherein it is permitted to lift the veil from human 
errors and frailties, and give to man and to circum- 
stances their due part in the production of events, 
the wondrous chain of causes and effects stretches 
out before us into the deepest recesses of the past, 
uniting by indissoluble links the proud aspiration 
of to-day with the hope that was breathed, half 
formed and almost indefinite, three thousand years 
ago. 

In this light the American Revolution has, at 
last, taken its place in history, both as cause and 



8 LECTURE I. 

as eftbet ; receiving its impulse iVom the past, and 
transmitting it with a constantly increasing power 
to a future yet unrevealed. 

What now was the cause of this rapid change in 
the opinions and attections of three millions of men, 
— a change so complete as almost to justifv the 
opinion, that it was the work of design from the 
beginning? How was confidence transformed into 
suspicion, loyalty into aversion, submission and love 
into detiance and hatred? How could statesmen 
be so ignorant of the common laws of our nature, 
as to suppose that the industry which had been 
fostered by security could survive the sense of se- 
curity ? How could philosophers so far forget tlie 
force of general principles, as to suppose that the 
descendants of men who, when few m number and 
hard pivssed by poverty, had preferred a wilder- 
ness for their home to a yoke for tlieu' consciences, 
should so far belie their blood as tamely to renounce 
thoii' birthright when they were become a power- 
ful people, and had made that wilderness a garden? 

And here, at the threshold of our inquiry, we 
must pause a moment to remember that nothing is 
so fatal to a correct understanding of history as tlie 
blending and confounding of the two classes of 
causes which luiderlie all human events. For wliile 
every occiu'rence may be traced back to some im- 
mediate antecedent, it belongs also as a part to 
those great classes of events, which, gathering into 
themselves the results of whole periods, enable us 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 9 

to assign to nations and epochs, as well as to inci- 
dents and individuals, their appropriate place in the 
progress of humanity. 

Keeping, therefore, this distinction in view, we 
find the first cause of alienation in the colonial 
system itself. This system had grown up grad- 
ually and almost imperceptibly; beginning with 
a few feeble colonists scattered over a vast extent 
of territory, or clustering here and there in towns 
which, in Europe, would hardly have passed for 
villages. These colonists had no wish to dissolve 
their legal connection with England. Reverence 
for law and precedent, as I have already hinted, 
was a national characteristic ; an inborn sense which 
they had inherited from their fathers, and could 
not eradicate without changino; their whole nature. 
They still trod and loved to tread in the footsteps 
which they knew. The beaten track was a safe 
and a plain track, full of pleasant associations, fa- 
miliar to their eyes and dear to their hearts. With 
this under their feet they walked firmly, like 
men who know what is behind them and what is 
before. 

They had brought with them the common law, 
and, as far as the difference of circumstances per- 
mitted, followed its precepts. They had brought 
their municipal forms with them, and adapted them 
to the wants of their new home. And above all, 
they had brought with them the animating princi- 
ple, the vital spirit of those laws and forms, the 
1* 



10 LECTURE I. 

spirit of English liberty. They had forsaken one 
home for it, and without it no ])lace woidd have 
looked to them like home. It was their inspiration, 
their guide, and their comforter, interwoven with 
all their habits and thouo-hts and feelin<'-s, and in- 
separable from their conception of duty to them- 
selves, to their chiklren, and to their Maker. 

The spirit of English liberty is not an abstract 
conception, logically deduced from fundamental 
principles, and applied to the practice and purposes 
of life. Neither is it a sentiment, reaching the 
feelings tlirouoli the imamnation, and mvino; its 
coloring to thought because it had already been 
specidatively combined with action. It is an in-j/ 
stinctive conviction, confirmed by reason, deep, 
ever present and ever active. You find it first in 
the forests of Germany, an absolute individuality, 
unlike anything that the Greek or Roman world 
had ever seen ; strong-willed, self-dependent, spurn- 
ing involuntary control, yet submitting cheerfully 
to the consequences of its own acts. Thence it 
crosses the seas as a conqueror, and suffering, as 
conquerors generally do, from the completeness of 
its own triumph, it relaxes somewhat of its vigor, 
passes through many vicissitudes, and, having sur- 
vived the associations both of its origin and its 
transmigration, comes out, with all the fVesimess of 
its youth about it, in the meadow of Runnymede. 

Here it entered upon a new phase of existence ; 
a phase which gradually devv^loped all its chai'acter* 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 11 

istic traits, strengthening and purifying it till it be- 
came the most perfect conciliation which the world 
had yet seen of the rights of the individual with 
the rights of society. And this was the form 
which it had assumed when our fathers first brought 
it to these shores, where for forty years it was 
allowed to grow at will, and had already penetrated 
every part of the new society, before the guardi- 
ans of the old bethought them of taking it under 
their j)rotection. 

The first fruit of this protection was the Act of 
Navigation, so long celebrated as the masterpiece, 
of statesmanship, and so tenaciously clung to as the 
bulwark of England's commercial prosperity. The 
foundation, indeed, had been laid by the Long 
Parliament, and confirmed by the courts of West- 
minster. But it was not until Charles II. had 
entered upon his career of profligacy and corrup- 
tion, that the Colonists began to feel the chains 
gradually tightening ai'ound their commerce, and 
contracting the sphere of their industry. First 
came a five per cent duty upon exports and im- 
ports ; tlien the great Act itself, closing their ports 
to eveiy flag but that of England, restricting the 
pursuit of commerce to native or naturalized sub- 
jects, and prohibiting the exportation of certain 
" enumerated ai'ticles, such as sugar, tobacco, cot- 
ton, wool, ginger, or dye-woods," produced in the 
Colonies, to any country but England. Still the 
Colonies grew and prospered, and still the jealous 



r< 



./ 



12 LECTURE I. 

watchfulness of the motlier country kept pace with 
their increasing prosperity. As new branches of 
industry were opened, new shackles were forged, 
and every fresh product of their enterprise was 
promptly added to the lists of prohibition. The 
Navigation Act, in its enlarged form, was passed in 
1660 ; in 1763 it had woven its toils around Amer- 
ican enterprise in twenty-nine separate acts, each 
breathing its spirit and enforcing its claims. 

It is not difficult to imagine the feelincrs with 
which these acts were received. Open resistance, 
indeed, was impossible, and remonstrance would 
have been unavailing. Still the obedience that 
was rendered wore oftener the air of remonstrance 
than of cheerful acquiescence ; and although the 
right was generally conceded, the exercise of it 
excited bickerino;s and lieart-burnino;s that m-adu- 
ally prepared the way for independence. The en- 
terprising spirit itself could not be repressed ; and 
smuggling, its natural outlet, became almost as 
reputable, and far more profitable, than regular 
trade. 

Thus the relation of England to her Colonies, 
which might have been a relation of mutual good 
offices, became, on her part, a mere business rela- 
tion, founded upon the principle of capital and 
labor, and conducted with a single eye to her own 
interests. They formed for her a market of con- 
sumption and supply, consuming large quantities 
of her manufactures, and supplying her, at the 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 13 

lowest rates, with many objects that she required 
for her own consumption. What they sent out as 
raw material, she returned prepared for use. Her 
ship-owners grew rich as they carried the sure 
freight to and fro. Her manufactures gave free 
play to their spirit of enterprise, for their market 
was secured to them by a rigorous monopoly. She 
had the exclusive right of buying, and therefore 
bought upon her own terms; the exclusive right 
of selling, and therefore set her own prices. If 
with all these restrictions and obstacles the Colonies 
still continued to grow in wealth and strength, it 
was because in a new country, where land was 
cheap, the spirit of industry could not be crushed 
from a distance of three thousand miles by the spirit 
of monopoly. 

Still the feeling engendered by this relation was 
not of a kind to make it lasting. That of the 
Americans was distrust and suspicion, strangely 
mixed up with filial reverence, — an instinctive 
sense of injury, instantly met by the instinctive 
sussestion, that there must be some constitutional 
reason for doing it, or it would not be done. That 
of England was summed up with somewhat more 
of concision than of elegance in Attorney-General 
Seymor's reply to Commissioner Blair. Pleading 
warmly for a moderate enlargement of the moder- 
ate allowance to the churches of Virginia, " Con- 
sider, sir," said the pious commissioner, " that the 
people of Virginia have souls to save." " Damn 




14 LECTURE I. 

yoiir souls ! " was the ready answer ; " make to- 
bacco." 

A second cause, equally active, and in its effects 
equally powerful with the first, Avas English igno- 
rance of America. Nothino; alienates man from 
man more surely than the want of mutual appre- 
ciation. Sympathy founded upon respect for our 
feelings, and a just estimate of our Avortli, is one 
of the earliest cravings of the human heart. It 
begins with our first recognition of existence, im- 
parting an irresistible eloquence to the eye and 
to the lips of infancy. It grows with our youth, 
and, as we rise into manhood, finds new strength 
in reason and experience, teaching us in their 
daily lessons that without it there can be no sure 
foundation for the purest and noblest sentiments 
of our nature. It is the only feehng which can 
reconcile us to that condition of mutual depend- 
ence in which it has pleased our Maker to place 
us in this life ; and working, as all the feelings 
Avhich he has implanted in our breasts work, for 
the accomplishment of its appropriate end, it cher- 
ishes in the harmonious co-operation of fellow- 
citizens the germ of that beneficent concurrence 
of human wills and human desires, which, in God's 
chosen time, Avill become the brotherhood of the 
nations. 

Few Eno;lishmen had accurate ideas of the na- 
ture, the extent, or even the position of the Colo- 
nies. And when the Duke of Newcastle hurried 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 15 

to the King with the information that Cape Breton 
was an island, he did what perhaps half his col- 
leagues in the ministry, and more than half his 
colleagues in Parliament, would have done in his 
place. They knew that the Colonies were of vast 
extent ; that they lay far away beyond the sea ; 
that they produced many things which English- 
men wanted to buy, and consumed many things 
which Englishmen wanted to sell ; that English 
soldiers had met England's hereditary enemies, the 
French, in their forests ; that English sailors had 
beaten French sailors on their coasts. But they 
did not know that the most flourishing of these 
Colonies had been planted by men who, prizing 
freedom above all other blessings, had planted them 
in order to secure for themselves and their children 
a home in which they could worship God according 
to their own idea of worship, and put forth the 
strength of their minds and of their bodies accord- 
ing to their own conception of what was best for 
them here and hereafter. 

Hence, the ideas awakened by the mention of 
plantatioiis were not ideas of brotherhood and sym- 
pathy, but of investment and gain. Like land- 
lords who receive their rents through an agent, with- 
out seeing or caring to see the farm that produces, 
or the men who make it productive, they merely 
counted their money, and asked why there was not 
more of it. And when more came, it was wel- 
comed as a proof that there was still more to come : 



16 LECTURE I. 

that the soil had not yet been made to pay its full 
tribute ; that a little more care, a little more watch- 
fulness, a little more exaction, would multiply its 
increase many fold ; and that every attempt to turn 
that increase to the advantage of the laborers was 
a fraud upon the state. 

It was known, also, that from time to time crim- 
inals had been sent to the plantations as an alter- 
native, if not an equivalent, for the dungeon or the 
gallows ; — and what to many minds seemed hard- 
ly less heinous, that men too poor to pay their pas- 
sage across the ocean had often sold themselves 
into temporary servitude, in the hope of finding 
a home in which they might eat in security the 
bread which they had earned in the sweat of their 
brows. Philosophers, too, comparing the animals 
of the two worlds, had discovered that America 
was incapable of producing the same vigorous race 
which had carried civilization so far in Europe ; 
and that, whatever might be the grandeur of her 
mountains, the vastness of her lakes, and the ma- 
jesty of her rivers, the man that was born among 
them must gradually degenerate both morally and 
physically into an inferior being. 

And thus, when the eye of his kindred beyond 
the ocean was first turned upon him, the American 
colonist ah'eady appeared as an infeiior, condemned 
to labor in a lower sphere, and cut off by Nature 
herself from all those higher aspii'ations which en- 
noble the soul that cherishes them. His succ(iss 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 17 

awakened no pride ; liis filial reverence called in 
vain for maternal affection. The hand that had 
been held out in cordial welcome to the English 
stranger in America, found no respondent grasp 
when the American stranger returned to visit the 
home of his fathers in England. With a heart 
overflowing with love, with a memory stored with 
traditions, with an imagination warmed by tales 
and descriptions that began in the nursery ballad, 
and led by easy transitions to Shakespeare and Mil- 
ton, with a mind elevated by the examples of Eng- 
lish history and the precepts of English philosophy, 
he was received with the repulsive coldness of 
English reserve, and the haughty condescension 
of English pride. Had it not been that man is 
never so set in his opinions as when he takes them 
up in order to reconcile his conscience to a preju- 
dice, the best minds of England Avould have seen 
that America had soon produced minds fully able 
to cope with theirs on their strongest ground. But 
the choicest lessons of experience were thrown 
away. From generation to generation the galling 
insult was repeated; and still the Colonist loved 
the land whose language he spoke, and revered 
the mstitutions from which he had drawn his own 
ideas of the duties of the sovereign and the rights 
of the subject. But already the work of aliena- 
tion was begun, and every new demonstration of 
English prejudice was like the loosening of another 
of the "hooks of steel" which had once grappled 



t: 



18 LECTURE I. 

the land of his forefathers to the " soul " of the 
American. 

A third cause is found in the nature of the in- 
/^h,P stitutions, and more particularly of the municipal 
institutions, which the Colonists brought "with them. 
For institutions have their nature, like human be- 
ings, and will as consistently and as inevitably work 
it out. Society is a soil whereon no seed falls in 
vain. Years, and even centuries, may pass before 
the tender germ makes its slow way to the light. 
But grow it must, and thrive and bear its fruit ; 
and not merely fruit for the day, but fi'uit produ- 
cing a new, though kindred seed, which, passing 
through the same changes, will lead in due time to 
a new and kindred growth. 

The English colonial system Avas false from the 
beginning, — formed in erroneous conceptions of the 
laws of national prosperity, and the relations of 
sovereign and subject. But still it was, in part, an 
error common to all the countries which had plant- 
ed colonies in America, all of whom had carried 
it into theii' colonial policy, and done battle for it 
by land and by sea. Even Montesquieu, when he 
discovered the long-lost title-deeds of humanity, 
failed to discover amongst them, in distinct specifi- 
cation, the title-deeds of colonial rights. 

But in the apphcation of tliis eiToneous system, 
the superiority of a free over a despotic govern- 
ment was manifest. English colonies prospered in 
a cold climate, and on a meagre soil, as French and 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 19 

Spanish colonies never prospered under mild skies, 
and with a soil that almost anticipated the labors of 
the husbandman. This superiority, and not the 
protection of her armies and fleets, was the endur- 
ing though unconscious service which England ren- 
dered to America. Her colonists were the free 
sons of fathers so accustomed to freedom that they 
held life as of little worth without it ; and so trained 
by their municipal institutions to the forms of self- 
government, that even rebellion assumed the garb 
of order, and resistance to constituted authority 
moved with the precision and regularity of legal 
action. 

And here, permit me at the risk of a digression 
to remind you of the important part Avhich muni- 
cipal institutions have ever borne in the history of 
civilization. The natural growth of every gener- 
ous soil, we find them in Italy at the dawn of his- 
tory, and we find them still there through all its 
manifold vicissitudes. They gave energy to the 
long struggle with Rome. They nourished the 
strength which bore the imperial city to the sum- 
mit of glory and power. They survived the great 
inroad of the barbarians, appearing even in the 
darkest hour of the tempest like fragments of some 
noble ship, to which the survivors of the wreck 
still cling with trembling hands, in the fond hope 
that the winds may yet cease and the ocean rest 
from its heavings. Need I remind you of those 
republics of the Middle Ages, which, gathering up 



20 LECTURE I. 

the lessons of Greece and Rome, enriched them by 
new lessons of their own, lessons accepted by ev- 
ery free people as essential elements of freedom ? 
Need I tell you how the spirit of industry, how 
commercial enterprise and mechanic invention, 
and, better than all these, freedom of thought and 
vigor of creative imagination, have followed the 
waxing and waning of municipal freedom, still grow- 
ing with its growth and withering with its decay ? 

These were the institutions which our fathers 
brought with them in their English form, — surely 
one of the best ; for by virtue of this, while they 
cherished that belief in inalienable rights which 
made independence inevitable as an aspiration, they 
preserved those habits of self-government without 
which it would never have been attainable as a 
blessing. 

The three causes which I have already men- 
tioned would sooner or later have produced a ^do- 
lent separation of the Colonies from the mother 
^/ country. For the colonial system would have led 
to a collision of interests ; English ignorance to ill- 
directed attempts at coercion ; the sentiment of 
inalienable rights fostered by English institutions, 
to firm and resolute resistance. But many years, 
perhaps another century, might have passed before 
these causes alone would have brought on an open 
contest, if their action had not been hastened by 
the concurrence of two other causes, one of later 
growth, the other almost contempoi*ary with the 
first three. 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 21 

This last was the fact that, in her war upon the 
freedom of colonial industry, England was at war 
with the spirit of her own political system. She 
had left nothing midone to break down the bar- 
riers with which Spain had fenced in her American 
Colonies. The illicit trade which she punished by 
fine and imprisonment on her own colonial coast, 
was long pursued on the Spanish Main, almost 
under the shadow of St. George's cross. Her true 
interest required an enlargement of her commerce, 
new markets for her manufactures, an expansion 
of her navigation in every du'ection ; and the 
true interests of a country will always, sooner or 
later, infuse somewhat of their spirit into its con- 
duct, even where they fail to commend themselves 
to its rulers. By nature and by position England 
was the champion of free trade. But her states- 
men, unable to raise themselves above the preju- 
dices of the age, seem to have vied with each other, 
during every period of her colonial history, in do- 
ing all that depended upon them to transform a 
nation of merchants into a nation of shopkeepers. 

The cause of later growth was the fact that Eng- 
land was oppressed with debt, — her landholders 
overburdened with taxes. The monopoly which 
brought golden streams to the merchant and the 
manufacturer, brought no evident advantage to the 
country gentleman. He could not see in what 
his condition was to be bettered by an increase in 
the shipping of Bristol ; just as at this very time the 



22 LECTURE I. 

moneyed men of Liverpool were unable to see how 
the Duke of Bridge water's canals were to be of 
any use to tlieni, and allowed liis note for £ 500 
to be hawked about I'roni broker to broker in quest 
of a }>urc'liaser. Town and country railed at each 
other, :is they have always done, and the landholder, 
as he Olive vent to his indionation, called loudly for 
some one to share Avith him the burden of taxation. 
What class so able as the rich colonists who Avere 
thriving under his protecticm ? That ])rotection, 
as he luulerstood it, Avas an advantage avcU worth 
paying for ; and with a foresight worthy of his 
(^ motives, he hailed the Stamp Act as the harbinger 
of that happy day which was to send the tax-gath- 
erer from his own door to that of his American 
factor. 

It was Enghind's first misfortiuie that she adopt- 
ed an erroneous system. But this might have been 
pardoned her, as a common cn-or of the age. Her 
second misfortune was that she persevered in it 
kmg after its crroncousness had been demonstrated, 
and for this her only apology is the humiliating 
confession that lier rulers were unlit ior their jilaces. 
There was no jieriod previous to ITG-^ wherein a 
real statosnian might nt)t have reconciled the just 
claims of both countries ; giving \.o each all that, 
in the true interest of civili/ation, it had a right to 
ask ; imposing upon each all that, in the true in- 
terest of civilization, it was bound to bear. 

For what is statesmanship but the art of adapt- 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 23 

ing the actual condition of a nation to what must 
inevitably be its future condition, — the art of con- 
necting the present with the past and the future, — 
distinguishing the permanent from the casual causes 
of national prosperity, and thus knowing what to 
lop off as an excrescence, what to root up as a 
noxious growth, and what to foster with all the arts 
of sedulous cultivation ? More tlian half the blood 
that has been shed upon this blood-stained earth 
of ours, has been shed because mankind have per- 
severed in iutmsting their dearest intei'ests to the 
guidance of men who have no reverence for the 
\y jDast, no intelligent appreciation of the present, no 
prophetic visions of the inevitable future. 

How much to attribute to individuals, and how 
much to general causes, is one of the most difficult 
problems of philosophical history. But the publi- 
cation of George the Third's letters and billets 
to Lord North leaves no room to doubt the part 
which tlie monarch bore in the contest with Amer- 
ica. George the Third, notwithstanding his Eng- 
lish birth and nominally English education, had all 
the arbitrary instincts of a German prince. To 
free himself from the hereditary control of the 
great Whig families, and to exalt the royal prerog- 
ative above the aristocracy and the people, was the 
hope with which he ascended the throne, and to 
this end all his policy was directed as long as he 
was able to direct it. In the searchino; light of his- 
tory it matters little that he was a pure man in his 



24 LECTURE I. 

domestic relations, and an industrious man in liia 
royal functions. Not even tlie sincerity of his con- 
victions can cleanse him from tlie taint of unneces- 
sary bloodshed ; for he erred in tliino-s wherein it 
is not permitted to man to err and hold himself 
guiltless. With none of the chai-acteristics of 
greatness himself, he could not bear great men 
around hun ; and while no one can blame him for 
seizing the earliest opportunity to tlu'ow off Gren- 
ville as a tedious formalist, no one should forget 
that the ear wdiicli was reluctantly opened to Chat- 
ham and Fox drank in with avidity the congenial 
counsels of a Bute and a Wedderburn. 

And thus the English tax-payer, groaning inider 
his burdens, joined henrtily with short-sighted min- 
isters and a narrow-minded king in the attemj)t to 
draw a revenue from the Colonies by Parliamen- 
tary taxation. While the contest lasted, he sup- 
ported government with his vote and his jnu'se, 
submitting, though not without an occasional mur- 
mur, to an increase of his ])vesent load, in the firm 
hope of future I'clief. And when, at length, the 
inevitable day of defeat came, he was the last to 
see that the attemjit had been lioj)eless from the 
beginning. 

And this brings to view a circumstance which, 
though not an original cause of alienation, added 
materially to the diflficulty of effecting a cordial 
reconciliation when the dispute became a discussion 
of Parliamentary rights. It is one of the great 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 25 

advantages of the English constitution, that it has 
grown lip with the growth of the Enghsh nation. 
Thus, as society has continued its progress, the con- 
stitution has nearly kept pace with that progress ; 
never much in advance, never long in the rear; 
sometimes gtiiding, sometimes waiting upon its 
footsteps ; but always the faithful exponent of the 
feelinirs and convictions of the bulk of the nation. 
Some of these adaptations and expansions have 
been made silently ; the statute-book reflecting, as 
it were with an instinctive S3mipathy, the mind and 
the heart of the people. But by far the greater part 
have cost long and bitter contests, — convulsions 
some of them, and some of them blood. And in 
them all the spirit of the constitution has been pre- 
served, although the letter has often changed, — its 
spirit of freedom, which was already a living spirit 
under the Plantagenets, though a feeble one, which 
tempered the arrogance of the Tudors, and never 
was truer to its mission than when it crushed the 
Stuarts. 

But while this gradual development has been 
attended by many advantages, it has been produc- 
tive also of an iinusual degree of that uncertainty 
and contradiction which always attend the inter- 
pretation of a constitution, whether compressed 
within a few pages like our own, or scattered 
through hundreds of folios like that of England. 
An absolute government — France or Spain — 
would have brought the claims of the Colonists to 

2 



26 LECTURE I. 

the decision of the sword from the beginning ; for 
the French and Spanish colonist, in resisting the 
pretensions of the mother country, would have had 
no legal or constitutional ground to stand upon. 
What one arbitraiy sovereign had given, another 
ai'bitrary sovereign might take away ; and the col- 
ony that was too feeble to resist had no choice but 
to submit. 

But with English colonists the question of Par- 
hamentary supremacy was a constitutional ques- 
tion, a discussion of legal rights, leading, as men's 
blood grew warm, to the sword, but necessarily be- 
ginning with the pen. In this discussion, individ- 
ual opinions and party opinions were soon enlisted. 
awakening fiery zeal, and gradually preparing both 
sides for a solution from which they would both 
have shrunk at the outset. The Parliament that 
" languidly " voted the Stamp Act, would have de- 
bated loner and divided often before it voted an 
armed invasion. The men who resisted it would 
have repelled with indignation the charge of dis- 
loyalty. It was by steps which to them who were 
taking them seemed very slow, that the final step 
of an open war was reached. Both sides had 
much to study and much to say. Englishmen, 
though fiilly agreed iipon the question of Parlia- 
mentary supremacy as a constitutional principle, 
were far fi*om agreeing upon the interpretation of 
that supremacy. Did it imply the right of taxa- 
tion ? If it did, what became of that other fiinda- 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 27 

mental principle, — taxation goes with representa- 
tion? Were the Amei'icans represented in Par- 
liament? If not, what would be the final effect 
of this taxing without representation upon England 
herself? The field of discussion was immense, 
almost boundless, — embracing, as some of Dean 
Tucker's tracts show, a prophetic glimpse of the 
true laws of trade ; and, as Chatham's speeches 
show, a foreshadowing of Parliamentary reform. 

On the part of the Americans, the feeling of de- 
pendence was very vague, very indefinite. In 
some form and degree they all acknowledged it ; 
but the form was nowliere clearly defined, the de- 
gree nowhere distinctly marked out. The most 
important Colonies had been founded at a moment 
when all the best minds of the mother country 
were actively engaged in discussing the claims of 
the royal prerogative, — the very best, in trying to 
set bounds to it. With this feeling towards roy- 
alty, the Colonists laid the foundations of the new 
state, and laid them more in harmony with the 
rights which they came here to secure, than with 
the claims whicli tliey came here to avoid. As the 
state grew, those foundations became more firmly 
fixed% The great problem of social organization 
— how far the rights of the individual can be car- 
ried without interfering with the rights of society, 
or impeding its legitimate action — was met as a 
practical question, susceptible of a practical solu- 
tion. All the forms of their society compelled 



28 LECTURE I. 

them to think and to discuss. They discussed in 
their town meetings. They discussed at their elec- 
tions. They discussed in their General Courts and 
General Assemblies. Every question was brought 
to the final test of individual opinion ; and when 
tliis became merged in the general opinion, every 
individual felt that he could still recognize therein 
something of his own. They were all parts of the 
state, and, as parts, had an equal interest in it, an 
equal claim to its protection, an equal right to 
control its action. 

To counteract this, there was their love of Eng- 
land, their Anglo-Saxon love of precedent, their 
insthictive sense of legal subordination; — feelings 
so strong and so deep rooted, that it was not until 
the Act of Navigation had, by the slow gi'owth of 
a hundred and four yeai's, reached its logical con- 
clusion in the Stamp Act, that " the strong man 
arose from his slumber, and, shaking his invinci- 
ble locks," burst forever the bands tliat had bound 
him to an ungenerous and unsympathizing pai'ent. 

Thus a false colonial policy led to false relations 
between England and her American Colonies ; an 
unjust depreciation of colonial character undermined 
the sentiments of reverence and love which the 
Colonists had piously cherished for their mother 
country ; an insane hope of alleviating his own 
burdens by casting part of them upon his American 
brethren led the English tax-payer to invade in 
the Colonies a riixlit which he would have cheer- 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 29 

I'ully died for at home ; and a narrow personal am- 
bition combined with gross ignoi'ance of the science 
of statesmanship prevented the adoption of any 
effective measures for adapting the relations of the 
two countries to the changes which a century of 
marvellous prosperity had produced in their re- 
spective positions. And thus alienation and oppo- 
sition grew, advancing step by step — twenty-nine 
in all — from the Act of Navigation to the Boston 
tea-party and tlie battle of Lexington. 

Thus far I have spoken only of the relations 
arising from the connection between England and 
her Colonies. But both England and her Colonies 
formed part of a larger system, — the great Euro- 
pean system, not merely as a system of policy, but 
as a form of civilization. And during the whole 
period of Colonial history, this system was under 
constant .discussion, — discussion with the pen and 
with the sword. While the Pilgrims were making 
for themselves a home at Plymouth, and prepar- 
ing the way for Roger Williams and the doctrine 
of soul liberty, Richelieu was undermining the 
aristocracy of France, and preparing the way for 
Louis XIV. and absolutism. While the claims of 
hereditary monarchy as the most peaceful method 
of transmitting sovereign power were receiving a 
bloody confutation in the wars of the Spanish and 
the Austrian succession, England was taking firm 
possession of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, mak- 
ing sure the fur trade of Hudson's Bay, the fish- 



30 LECTURE I. 

eries of the Great Banks, planting new Colonies in 
the Carolinas, and pivparing herself for the great, 
and, as she fondly thought, the final struggle, in 
the valley of the Ohio, and on the banks of the 
St. Lawrence. American clauses gradually crept 
into European treaties. Diplomatists, with the 
map of Europe before them, began to cast longing 
eyes on the vast territories beyond the Atlantic. 
At last came the treaty of Paris, in 17G3, — the 
proudest treaty which England had ever signed, 
wherein a needy partisan, grasping at the succes- 
sion of a great statesman, set his name to the act 
which stripped France of the Canadas, and sliixt 
her out forever from the valley of the Ohio. 

And now, thought the King and his counsellors, 
we have our Colonies to ourselves, and can hence- 
forth make war or peace in Europe as Ave choose, 
without taking them into account. But not so 
thought the French jNlinister at Versailles, and the 
French Ambassador at London ; and while George 
GreuA-ille, the man who, according to Dr. Johnson, 
could have comited the Manilla ransom if he could 
have enforced the payment of it, was eagerly coun't- 
ingin advance the profits of his Stamp Act, French 
emissaries were passing through the thirteen Colo- 
nies in their length and breadth, and Durand, 
Frances, and Du Cliatelet Avere sending to the Duke 
of Choiseul long and minute reports of the char- 
acter, resources, and spirit of the Colonists. When 
the ministry of Louis XVL were called upon to 



CAUSES OF THE RE VOLUTION. 31 

decide between England and America, the archives 
of the Foreign Office at Paris afibrded materials for 
the formation of a sound opinion, hardly less abun- 
dant, and far more reliable, than those of the For- 
eign Office at London. Cool observers now, if not 
absolutely impartial, French statesmen saw clearly 
in 1766 what statesmen on the other side of the 
Channel wei'e too much blinded by pride and false 
conceptions of their interest to see in 1776. " They 
are too rich to persevere in obedience," wrote Du- 
rand, just nine years and eleven months before the 
Declaration of Independence. " They are too 
rich not to share our taxes," reasoned Grenville, 
and half England marvelled at his wisdom. 

And this brings us to that second class of causes 
which I have already alluded to as gathering into 
themselves the results of whole periods. Lord Ba- 
con tells us that "a great question will not h\\ 
of being agitated some time or other." What 
question so great for our thirteen Colonies as free 
labor in its broadest sense, and with its train of 
mighty consequences ? For free labor implies free- 
dom of M'ill, — the right to think as well as the 
right to act. And all Europe was agitated by 
thoughts which, translated into action, led to an 
entirely new principle of government, — the great- 
est good of the greatest number. The doctrine 
of inherited rights was gradually calling in its de- 
tachments, and forming the line of battle for the 
decisive struggle with the doct 'ine of natural rights. 



32 CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 

All through its ranks gleamed the burnished arms 
of its devoted allies, — waved the proud banners 
which had waved over it in triumph for more than 
half a thousand years. And in front, as far as 
eye covild reach, stretched the firm phalanx of the 
enemy ; calm, deliberate, resolute, fearless, confi- 
dent of victory. For it was no longer a Avar of 
kino; aoainst kincr, a war to decide whether an 
Austrian or a Frenchman should sit on the throne 
of Spain, — whether a few millions more or less 
of Italians, or of Flemings, should be thrown, as 
make-weights, into the scale, when their owners 
were tired of fighting, and satiated with military 
glory; but the great war of the ages, which was 
to crush forever the hopes of civilization, or open 
wide the gates of progress as they had never 
been opened before. And therefore it was meet 
that the signal of battle should come from men 
who saw distinctly for what they were contending, 
and were prepared to stake their all upon the issue. 
As a chapter of English and American history, 
the American Revolution is but the attempt of 
one people to prescribe bounds to the industry of 
another, and appropriate its profits. As a chapter 
and one, too, of the brightest and best in the his- 
tory of humanity, it is the protest of inalienable 
rights against hereditary prerogative ; the demon- 
stration of a people's power to think justly, decide 
wisely, and act firmly for themselves. 



LECTURE II. 

THE PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 

IN my first Lecture I endeavored to show the his- 
torical position of the American Revolution, and 
point out the causes which produced it. We saw, 
that, as a purely English and American question, 
it was the necessary consequence of the colonial 
system, — a struggle for monopoly on one side, and 
free labor on the other. We saw that, as a chap- 
ter in the history of European civilization, it was 
a struggle between hereditary prerogative and in- 
alienable rights. Both of these views will be con- 
firmed by the historical sketch which I propose to 
give you this evening of the phases through which 
it passed in the progress of its development. 

The first permanent English Colony in America 
was planted in 1607, and by 1643 the foundations 
of New England had been so securely laid, that 
MassachusetlSf Plymouth, Connecticut, and New 
Haven formed a league for mutual protection 
against the French and Indians, under the signifi- 
cant title of the United Colonies of New England. 
2* c 



34 LECTURE II. 

History has nowhere recorded greater persever- 
ance, or a more marvellous growth. On what, as 
we look at the map, seems a narrow strip of land 
betwixt the wilderness and the ocean, Avith a wily 
enemy ever at their doors, they had built seaports 
and inland towns, and extended with Avonder- 
ful celerity their conquests over man and over 
nature. There were jealousies and dissensions 
among them. There were frequent misunder- 
standings with England about undefined rights. 
The Church, too, from Avhich they had fled that 
they might worship God in their own Avay, had 
already cast longing eyes upon their new abode, as 
a field ripe for her chosen reapers. But their 
strong municipal organization controlled jealousies 
and dissensions, even where it failed to suppress 
them. However vague English ideas of their 
rights might be, there Avere certain points AA^hereon 
their o\A'n AA'ere perfectly defined. And AA'hen the 
Church from longing prepared to pass to open iiwa- 
sion, they prepared for open resistance. They had 
hardly emerged from infancy when they began to 
wear the aspect and speak the language of vigor- 
ous manhood. Fo, " they had been planted at happy 
moments, — Avlien James AA'as starting questions 
which compelled men to think, and Charles doing 
things AA'hich compelled men to act. Tliose among 
them Avhich had charters Avatched them jealously 
and interpreted them liberally. Those that had 
not yet obtained them spared no exertions to ob- 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 35 

tain tliera ; falling back, meanwhile, upon their 
municipal institutions as a resource that met all 
their present wants. A few more years like the 
past, and the whole seaboard would be peopled. 

As yet, however, one element of strength was 
lacking, — a spirit of union ; for the' New Eng- 
land Union was rather tlie expression of an im- 
mediate want, than a natural aggregation of sym- 
pathetic parts. Plymouth was soon merged in 
Massachusetts, and New Haven in Connecticut. 
And both Massachusetts and Connecticut, which 
had never admitted little Rhode Island to their con- 
federacy, would gladly have divided her between 
them. New York was still Dutch, and remained 
Dutch in feelings and habits long after it had be- 
come English in name. New Jersey was not yet 
settled. A few Swedes were trying to build up 
colonies in what some years later became Pennsyl- 
vania and Delaware. Catholics, with an unconge- 
nial code of religious toleration, held Maryland, — 
while Virginia, the oldest and wealthiest Colony of 
all, had grown up under the shadow of the Church, 
and with a reverence for the King which seemed to 
place an insuperable barrier betwixt her and her 
unbishop-loving and more than half republican 
sisters of the East. Thus each Colony still stood 
alone ; each still looked to England as to a mother 
to whom they were all bound by natural and not 
unwelcome ties. 

Yet somethins which miffht have awakened sus- 



36 LECTURE II. 

picion had already occurred. The Pilgrims had 
not yet gathered in the first harvest which they 
Avrung with weary hands from the ungrateful soil 
of Plymouth, when an English Order in Council 
was issued, forbidding the exportation to foreign 
countries of any colonial product which had not 
previously paid duty in England. The only Col- 
ony to which this order could as yet apply was 
Virginia ; but what would not a mother be likely 
to ask of her children in the day of prosperity, who 
already asked so much in the day of trial ? 

Twenty-two years passed, and a warning voice 
came from New England ; " where," says the 
chronicler, " the supplies from England failing 
much, men began to look about them, and fell to 
a manufacture of cotton." Prophetic glances, 
these, into a distant future ; but, like so much of 
human foresight, thwarted and made useless by 
human passion. 

It was in no unkind spirit towards New Eng- 
land that Parliament passed the Navigation Act 
of 1651, but partly to curb the aggressions of Hol- 
land, and partly to arouse the slumbering energy 
of English nautical enterprise. New England 
might have asked much of the rulers of the Com- 
monwealth which she wisely refrained from asking. 
There was little that Virginia could have asked 
which would not have been granted grudgingly, if 
granted at all. The Commonwealth passed away, 
and the Restoration found the Colonies stronger in 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 37 

population, in wealth, and in tliat spirit which 
makes population and wealth availing. 

The period of indefinite relations was passed; 
the first phase of revolution, the period of definite 
subjection, was begun. For now — IGGO — that 
Act of Navigation of whicli that of 1651 was but 
the outline, and which Lords and Commons, histo- 
rians and orators, united in extolling as the pal- 
ladium of English commerce, a charta marithna 
second only to Magna Charta itself, first took its 
place on the statute-book. " It will enable your 
Majesty to give the law to foreign princes abroad, 
as your royal predecessors have done before you," 
said the Speaker of the House of Commons to 
Charles, as he presented the bill for approval. " By 
this act," says an historian of commerce, " we have 
absolutely excluded all other nations from any di- 
rect trade or correspondence with our American 
plantations." By this act, a philosopher might 
have said, you have opened a breach betwixt your- 
selves and your Colonies, which every year will 
widen, till the sword completes what the pen began, 
and severs you from them forever. 

It might have been supposed that ther-e was little 
in those Colonies, as yet, to excite the avaricious 
longings of commercial monopoly. But monopoly 
has a keen eye, if not a proplietic one ; and seldom 
does an immediate interest escape its eager search. 
" No sugar, tobacco, cotton-wool, indigo, ginger, 
fustic or other dyeing woods, of the growth or 



38 LECTURE II. 

manufacture of our Asian, African, or American 
colonies, shall be shipped from the said colonies to 
any place but Eno;land, Ireland, or to some other 
of his Majesty's said plantations, there to be landed, 
under forfeiture as before. And to make effectual 
this last-named clause, for the sole benefit of our 
own navigation and people, the owners of the ships 
shall o;ive bonds at their setting out for the due 
performance thereof." Thus reads the thirteenth 
clause. A few years later, Ireland, which, as you 
will observe, is here put upon the same footing 
with England, was excluded by name. You will 
observe, too, that the American Colonies stand last 
upon the list ; so much had England yet to learn, 
both about their importance and their character. 
The articles mentioned in this clause obtained the 
name of " enumerated commodities," henceforth 
an irritating and odious name in our colonial his- 
tory. 

Thus England took her position towards the Col- 
onies deliberately and definitely. Henceforth they 
were to work for her ; to grow strong, that they 
might add to her strength ; to grow rich, that they 
might aid her in heaping up riches ; but not to 
gi-ow either in strength or in wealth, except by the 
means, and in the direction, that she prescribed. 
It behooves us to ponder well this thirteenth clause ; 
to weigh it word by word, that we may understand 
the spirit in which it was conceived, and the spirit 
which it awakened. Its object was the general 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 39 

increase of shipping and navigation, — " -wherein,'^ 
says the preamble, " nncler the good providence 
and protection of God, the wealth, strength, and 
safety of this kingdom are so much concerned." 
Words well chosen, and whose truth none can 
gainsay ; for it is only by the portion of truth which 
h jnixed up with them that radical errors ever 
succeed in commendino- themselves to the human 
mind. And here the proportion of truth was not 
only large, — for national prosperity is closely al- 
lied with commercial prosperity, — but the error 
was singularly in harmony with the opinions and 
feelings of the age. " So long as your Majesty 
is master at sea," said the Speaker, "your mer- 
chants will be welcome wherever they come." 
Change the form of expression, and what does this 
mean, but that superior strength is to dictate the 
laws of commerce, as it dictates the terms of a 
treaty ? And what is this but the alliance of com- 
merce, whose power is founded upon interest, — I 
use the word in its true sense, — with the sword, 
whose power is founded upon fear ? Follow it a 
little further ; push it to its logical consequences, 
and you have that simple formula, so repugnant to 
truth, to morality, and to religion. My gain is your 
loss ; your loss is my gain.* 

* A great empire has been established for the sole purpose of 
raising up a nation of customers, who sliould be obliged to buy 
from the shops of our different producers all the goods with 
which those could supply them." — Smith, Wealth, &c., B. IV. 
Ch. Vm. Vol. 11. p. 517. 



/O LECTURE II. 

But could we expect men to foresee the disas- 
trous consequences of this narrow and selfish pol- 
icy, who undertook, as this Parliament did, in the 
same session in which they passed the Navigation 
Act, to encourage the " fish trade " by prohibiting 
the eating of flesh on Wednesday ? 

It Avas a necessary consequence of this system, 
that England should henceforth Avatch American 
industry in order to check it whenever it entered 
upon a track which she deemed inconsistent with 
her own interest, rather than with a view of en- 
couraging it whenever it opened a brancli useful 
to the Colonies. The enumerated list was ever at 
hand, a happy embodiment of the great principle, 
and susceptible of indefinite extension. Not many 
years passed before rice and molasses came more 
largely into demand; and the spirit of enterprise 
was presently rewarded by their prompt insertion 
upon the catalogue. Then the hardy trader, who, 
at the hazard of his life, had penetrated to the banks 
of the Ohio, and established trading-posts in the 
wilderness, was cheered in his industry by seeing 
his furs and peltries honorably classed with the 
other privileged articles which were reserved exclu- 
sively for the English market. Copper ore stands 
close by their side, — an enumeration of the same 
year, the eighth of George I., and showing how 
well prepared the House of Hanover came to tread 
in the footsteps of the House of Stuart. A still 
wider sweep was taken by George H., when pitch, 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 41 

tar, turpentine, masts, yards, and bowsprits were 
condemned by the ready Yeas of the House of 
Commons to make a voyage to England — and 
eleven weeks in those days was nearly the average 
length of the voyage — before they could be of- 
fered at any other market. 

The same spirit extended to royal charters. Al- 
ready, in the charter of Pennsylvania, the right of 
taxation had been expressly reserved to Parlia- 
ment. And when the charter of Massachusetts 
was renewed by William and Mary, or rather a 
new charter granted after the arbitrary sequestra- 
tion of the first by Charles, all the pine forests of 
Maine, not already granted to individuals, were 
treated as the property of the King, and every tree 
in them of more than twenty-four inches diameter 
at above a foot from the ground reserved to fur- 
nish masts for the royal navy. A hundred pounds 
sterling was the penalty for cutting one of those 
trees without a special license, with the addition 
of twenty lashes on the bare back if it was done 
in disguise. 

The position was taken. All that remained to 
do was to enforce the law. This required officers, 
and they were easily found. There were already 
officers of the customs, with their registers of en- 
try and clearance. And now, to protect the inter- 
ests of the royal navy, a new officer was appointed, 
— a "Surveyor-General of the King's Woods"; 
and, as he could not watch them all in person, he was 



42 LECTURE 11. 

furnislied with a goodly Land of deputies and un- 
derlings, who, from the chief with his ample salary 
and large perquisites to the subaltern with his fees 
for specific services, were bound, each in his degree, 
to uphold the King's claims to the pines that had 
been growing there for centuries, so straight and 
tall, without the King's aid or permission. It Avas 
a goodly net-work, spreading far over the land, and 
gathering, what such nets in such hands always 
gather, a full draught of litigation and discontent. 
For the Colonists could not bring themselves all 
at once to look upon the doings of Parhament as 
kind and wise. They had worked hard to make 
for themselves comfortable homes, and felt that the 
labor they had bestowed upon those homes gave 
them a right to enjoy them in their own way. 
When the Pilgrims first came, their chief care was 
provision and shelter ; how they could most readily 
make the earth give them food ; how they could 
most readily construct for themselves, out of the 
trees of the forest, dwellings which should be a 
protection both from the inclemency of the weather 
and a sudden attack of the savages. They planted 
and reaped with arms at hand for immediate use. 
They went to meeting with their guns loaded for 
instant service. All around them was wilderness, - 
— a leafy canopy of boundless forest. In a few 
years, fifteen thousand acres of this wilderness were 
under cultivation. Everywhere, as you went, 
your eye was greeted by cornfields and orchards 



t' LIASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 43 

and cottages that told of peace within doors and 
without. And now, as a new generation — a gen- 
eration born upon the soil — was beginning to reap 
the fruit of their fathers' sacrifices, they were told 
that they must not use their strength so freely ; 
that, before they employed the means which they 
l)ad created, they must ask permission of that 
moth T tlu'ee thousand miles off", who had looked 
on so coldly, if she had looked at all, while they 
were creating them. With all the love they bore 
tluit mother, — and we have already seen that they 
loved her, — there was an instinctive rising of the 
Colonial spirit against claims which the tamest 
among them could not but regard as an unjust re- 
straint upon their industiy. Even if the farmer 
could submit, could the merchant fail to see whither 
these restrictions were tending ? 

The merchant did see, and became the ally of 
smugglers. The farmer did not submit without 
murmurs that prepared the way for questionings ; 
and these questionings, growing bolder year by 
year, and more searching, led, at last, to open re- 
sistance. Among the pine forests of ]\Iaine there 
was a hardy race of lumberers, men who could not 
understand the Kind's claim to the trees which 
they had been so freely cutting down as their own. 
From the first appearance of the " Surveyor-Gen- 
eral " among them, they began to make his office 
uncomfortable for him. A feud sprang up between 
them, which no mediation, no authority could allay ; 



44 LECTURE 11. 

for it had its orimn in that instinct of right wliich 
often leads man to resist aggression, even where he 
fails to perceive its remoter consequences. The con- 
test between the Maine lumbermen and the royal 
surveyors was tlie prelude of the greater contest 
which was to set American industry free from ev- 
ery restraint but such as American legislators sliould 
see fit to impose upon it for the good of Americans. 
As the old French war prepared Washington for 
the peculiar trials of the Revolutionary war, this 
petty warfare between obscure men prepared the 
popular mind of Massachusetts — of Avhich Maine 
was as yet a part — for the discussion of that 
broader application of the same comprehensive 
principle w^iich led step by step to the Declaration 
of Independence. 

Of all the errors of legislation, there is none so 
fatal as the making of laws against which the pub- 
lic mind instinctively rebels. For it is only Avhen 
law is in harmony with the society for which it is 
formed, that men will give it that cheei-flil obedi- 
ence which makes it strong for the protection of 
good men and the punishment of evil-doers. A 
law wdiich violates the public conscience excites 
first hatred, and presently contempt for those who 
undertake to enforce it ; and from them the feeling 
soon extends with increased vigor to the source 
fi'om which the law emanated, confounding the 
sense of right and wrong, and undermining the 
very foundations of society. 



I'HASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 45 

Thus one of the natural effects of the Act of Nav- 
igation was to raise up a generation of law-break- 
ers ; of merchants, who went regularly to meetings 
doing the greater part of their business, the while, 
in a way that might have sent them to jail ; of law- 
yers, who dressed their wives and daughters in 
stuffs that the law would have confiscated ; of me- 
chanics and farmers, who daily put upon their ta- 
bles what they could not have put there if they 
had been compelled to obtain it through the regu- 
lar channels of commerce ; and sometimes, I fear, 
of clergvmen, who quieted their consciences by 
drawing subtle distinctions between direct and in- 
direct participation, — between the statutes of man 
and the statutes of God. 

The first and only effect of the reservation in 
Wilham and Mary's charter was to set in action a 
class of men who never act without making other 
men think ; and thus, by action and thought com- 
bined, and directed to one object, bringing out 
principles and awakening convictions that broke 
through reservations, and made charters useless. 

For thoughtful men, earnest men, cannot break 
laws often without calling in question the authority 
as well as the wisdom of the lawgiver. Where 
habit is not formed by principle, principle falls nat- 
urally under the control of habit. American mer- 
chants engaged in smuggling because they wanted 
a market and money. In time they came to look 
upon it as something that everybody participated 



46 LECTURE 11. 

in, though nobody cared to talk about it. Next 
came the unavoidable question, how men who were 
upright and honorable in everything else could 
be dishonest and dishonorable in this. And this 
brouglit them to the true question, When had they 
intrusted a legislature, so far removed from them 
by habit, by association, and by interest, with au- 
thority to control their industry and set bounds to 
their enterprise ? 

But it was not till after many trials, and a full 
experience of the true character of such legisla- 
tion, that this question was asked. The Colonist 
longed for freedom without aspiring to indepen- 
dence. It was not till the spirit of monopoly had 
spread from their foreign to their domestic com- 
merce, — it was not till each Colony had been put 
by statute in the position of a foreign nation to- 
wards its sister Colony, — that they saw what a vile 
spirit they were dealing with, and to what an un- 
natural condition it was leading them. When a 
hatter was forbidden to take more tlian two ap- 
prentices at a time, or any apprentice for less than 
seven years, — when he was encouraged to buy 
slaves, and forbidden to use them hi the only way 
wherein he could make his pm'chase profitable, — 
he felt aggrieved, deeply aggrieved. But when he 
was forbidden to send his hats to an adjacent Col- 
ony that was ready to pay him a fair price for them, 
and to which he could send them without incon- 
venience or risk, and get something in return that 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 47 

he wanted very much, he felt that the legislator 
who made these laws for him had made them in 
wanton defiance of his interest and his rights. 
Woollen manufacturers were subjected to the same 
restraints. Iron might be taken from the mine. 
America produced, and England wanted it ; but 
eveiy process which could add to the value of the 
unwrought ore was reserved for English hands. 
It could neither be slit nor rolled ; nor could any- 
plating forge be built to work with a tilt-hammer, 
or any furnace for the making of steel. It was 
just ninety years ftom the passing of the Naviga- 
tion Act when this last link was added to the chain. 
Such laws defied nature, and they for whom they 
were made, obeying nature, learnt to defy the law. 
But now a new phase begins. There are ru- 
mors of war on the frontiers ; not the war of the 
white man with the red man, but the long-cher- 
ished hatred of England for France, and of France 
for England, transplanted to America ; English 
colonists and English soldiers against French colo- 
nists and French soldiers, with Indian wiles and 
cruelty to aid them in the work of destruction. 
Already, in the last war, the Colonies had displayed 
their strength as efiicient and active allies, by taking 
the strong post of Louisburg without help from 
England. It was resolved in this to bring out their 
strength with more system and regularity, and a 
Congress was convened at Albany to consult npon 
the best way of doing it. Franklin availed him- 



48 LECTURE II. 

self of the opportunity to bring forward a plan of 
Union, wliich, by giving them a common rallying- 
point, would have been a first step towards eman- 
cipation. The English ministry condemned it, and 
substituted another plan, which, by putting the con- 
trol of the united strength of the Colonies into the 
hands of royal agents, would have confirmed them 
in their subjection. Both failed. But two great 
words had been uttered, — Congress and Union ; 
and henceforth men began to think about them 
and talk about them in a way which soon gave 
them that place in the public mind which no ideas 
can hold long without gaining a place m the public 
heart. 

Yet England had never before had such an op- 
portunity of confirming the Colonists in their love 
for their haughty mother. The war was in one 
sense as much their war as hers. Success w^ovdd 
rid them forever of a dangerous enemy. Failure 
would fix an enterprising rival upon half the long 
line of their frontiers. IVIilitary glory had attrac- 
tions for their young men. The prospect of a 
secure frontier and enlarged territory had attrac- 
tions for their statesmen. And the old English 
feeling of hatred for France, the old leaven of na- 
tional hostility, had lost little of its strength by 
being transplanted from the Old World to the New. 
Then was the time for taking as brothers the hands 
which the Colonists held out to them as children. 
Then was the time for soothing dissensions, rooting 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 49 

out jealousies, uniting judiciously by feeling what 
might still have been long united by interest. 

You all know how England profited by the op- 
portunity. You know how English regulars looked 
down upon Provincial vohmteers, on the parade- 
ground and in camp ; and how they were com- 
pelled to look up to them in the woods, and with the 
wg,r-whoop ringing in their ears. You know how 
Provincial colonels were outranked by Royal cap- 
tains ; how the distinctions which are the elements 
of military discipline were made to depend upon 
the caprice of an official who came to-day to go 
to-morrow, instead of the sure ground of tried 
merit and approved service. You all know that a 
Washington asked in vain for a King's commission, 
while the honor of the King's soldiers and the 
safety of the King's subjects were intrusted to a 
Braddock. And knowing this, can you wonder 
that Americans thought somewhat less reverently 
of English wisdom, and spoke with somewhat less 
confidence of English invincibility ? that, while 
they rejoiced in England's laurels, they should 
remember their own wounds, and be prepared to 
look more closely and more sceptically upon their 
mutual relations ? 

These relations had now reached their most 
critical moment. Canada was conquered; the 
North was free from the dano-er of foreign inva- 
sion ; England was triumphant everywhere, though 
loaded with debt; the Colonies jubilant over their 

3 D 



50 LECTURE II. 

own successes, and prepared to spring forward with 
increased elasticity in the career of industrial de- 
velopment. 

There were few intelligent men, on either side 
of the Atlantic, who did not foresee that sooner or 
later the Colonies must become independent. It 
was evident that what had already been done to 
develop their natural resources was but a feeble 
beginning, if compared with the immense results 
which must follow the opening of the valleys of 
the Ohio and the Mississippi to that race of stm'dy 
farmers and resolute woodsmen who had so prompt- 
ly carried cultivation from the shores of the Atlan- 
tic to the foot of the Alleghanles. Their popula- 
tion was fast approaching three millions. The 
Earth gave them iron, lead, copper, all the metals 
required for calling forth all her strength. They 
were hardy sailors as well as robust farmers, as fa- 
miliar with the compass as with the plough, and as 
skilled in finding their way on the pathless ocean 
as in the illimitable forest. On every side the thou- 
sand voices of streams and water-courses seemed 
to be calling for the busy wheels that were to en- 
able them to join their mightier sisters in the great 
work of civilization. And when all these forces 
were combined, what was to prevent these Colonies 
from dissolving their connection with England, and 
establishing a government of their own ? Such 
strength could not long be held in bondage by a 
small island three thousand miles oif. Such enter- 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 51 

prise could not always submit to the laws imposed 
by interested jealousy. Such energy could not 
always be the minister of another's will, the agent 
of another's power. The historian Robertson, fresh 
from the study of Charles the Fifth's vain attempt 
at universal dominion, saw clearly that the same 
natural laws which had concurred in frustrating 
the designs of the mighty Emperor, would some 
day set bounds to the aspirations of England, and 
make Araei'ica the seat of independent empire. 
The philosopher Smith, while tracing the laws 
which govern the growth of nations in wealth, 
found a law among them which marked out the 
limits of colonial subjection ; and, following it in its 
development, believed that the day would come 
when England would voluntarily transfer the scep- 
tre from an island to a continent, and Enghsh 
kings build their palaces on the banks of the Hud- 
son or the Potomac. 

Had the rulers of England been statesmen, they 
would have assumed ultimate independence as in- 
evitable, and set themselves in all earnestness to 
prepare the way for it. There was yet much that 
England could do for the Colonies, and still more 
that the Colonies could do for England. Mutual 
good offices, cherishing mutual affection, might still 
prolong a connection useful to both. And when 
the day of separation came, when, by the sure ac- 
tion of an inherent principle, both were brought 
to see that it was now better for both that they 



52 LECTURE II. 

should henceforth live apart, they might pass hy 
an easy and natural transition, that would leave no 
heart-burnings behind it, from the relation of sover- 
eign and subject to the relation of friend and ally. 
But the rulers of Eno-land were not statesmen. 

We enter upon a new phase, — a phase of sys- 
tematic aggression and prompt resistance. George 
Grenville, looking out from the little watch-tower 
tliat he had built for himself on a crumbling wall 
of the constitution, saw that the Colonies were 
forbidden to trade Avith the colonies of France and 
Spain, and presently resolved to enforce the laws 
against smuo;o;lino;. Naval officers were made offi- 
cers of the customs, and exerted their authority in 
a manner far more fatal to legitimate trade than to 
contraband. The regular officers of the customs, 
not to be outdone in zeal, applied for writs of assist- 
ance to authorize them to extend their searches to 
private dwellings. And thus was brought on that 
celebrated trial, so eventful in Massachusetts an- 
nals ; and then, too, was first heard from the mouth 
of James Otis the watch-word of the Revolution, 
— " Taxation without representation is tyranny." 
The ministry persevered in its stringent enforce- 
ment of the laws of trade. Tlie Colonies remon- 
strated against the restraints upon legitimate com- 
merce ; pointed in vain to the steady flow of the 
wealth it brought them towards the manufactories 
and counting-houses of England, and thus, event- 
ually, into the exchequer itself. The line of sight 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 53 

from Grenville's watch-tower did not reach as far 
as this. He only saw that the exchequer was low, 
and — exact logician — to fill it, devised the Stamp 
Act. 

How resolutely that act was met, and how 
promptly it was repealed, you all know. Had the 
spirit of that repeal heen adhered to, the day of 
separation might yet have been put off almost in- 
definitely, in spite of the fermentation of the pub- 
lic mind, and the pregnant questions that had been 
started. For if any already thought of indepen- 
dence, it was rather as a contingency to be feared 
than as a blessing to be asked for. Even what 
George the Third called " the waste-paper of the 
Declaratory Act " would have failed to gall the Col- 
onists to resistance, if it had not been closely fol- 
lowed up by the resolutions of Charles Townshend, 
imposing a real tax under the name of impost duties 
on glass, paper, painters' colors, and tea. But there 
was a contemptuous spirit in those resolutions, far 
more galling than the resolutions themselves ; for 
they seemed to say, with a civil sneer, if you do not 
choose to let us bind your hands, we will bind your 
feet, and much good may your hands do you ! 
Other u'ritating acts were passed, renewing tlie 
agitation of the public mind, and foreshadowing 
still more arbitrary legislation if this were tamely 
submitted to. England took her ground, arrogant 
and menacing, with a threat on her lips, and her 
sword half drawn. America took hers, indignant 



54 LECTURE II. 

and resolute, prepared to meet threats with defi- 
ance, and the sword with the sword- 
Resistance was organized : — no lono-er an ebul- 
lition of popular feeling, easily aroused by the pres- 
ence of an object, easily allayed by its removal; 
no longer dependent upon a few leading minds or 
a few warm hearts; — but a system, thoughtfully 
devised and thoughtfully accepted ; a necessity 
from which there was no esca})e but unconditional 
submission ; a resource which, promptly and wisely 
used, would establish freedom on foundations that 
could not be shaken. Patrick Henry's Virginia 
Resolutions, and the Declaration of Rights by the 
Congress of 17 65, told the American story in lan- 
guage so clear, so firm, and so earnest, that no man 
not passion-blinded could read them and doubt 
the sincerity of conviction in which they were con- 
ceived. And to us, at this distance from the blind- 
ing passions of the hour, it seems marvellous that 
an English statesman could have read them with- 
out recognizing in them the princi])les and the 
spirit which had raised England to such prosperity. 
I^it unfortunately for England, her statesmen did 
not recognize in them cither those pi'inciples or 
that spirit, and the few who read them understand- 
ingly had no influence with the King, no control- 
ling voice in Parliament. 

But Americans read them and felt their ideas 
grow clearer, their hearts wax firmer, as they read. 
There is a period in the growth of the public mind, 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 55 

just as there is in tlie growth of the individual 
mind, when ideas and feehngs are so mixed up, 
that men can hardly think clearly or act firmly 
without something to arrange their ideas and de- 
fine their feelino-s for tliem. There was a o;eneral 
persuasion among the Colonists that their rights 
had been invaded, and that there was a design 
of invading them still further. There was a deep- 
rooted conviction that resistance was lawful ; a 
feeling, second only to their religious feelings, that 
it was a duty. The doctrine that an English Par- 
liament had no right to tax them was not a new 
doctrine. New York had announced it by a sol- 
emn act of legislation as early as 1691 ; Massa- 
chusetts, in an enumeration of her rights and priv- 
ileges, in 1692. Both of these acts, it is true, 
were formally disallowed by the English govern- 
ment ; but they remained none the less a part of 
American history. 

Nor was the doctrine that England had a right 
to tax America new in England. For in 1696 it 
was deliberately advocated in an elaborate pam- 
phlet, and no less deliberately refuted in two pam- 
phlets, upon the ground which Americans always 
put it ui)on, — that taxation went with representa- 
tion. There had been various other indications, 
too, at various tmies, of the continued existence 
of both doctrines ; — of what some Englishmen 
wanted, and of what every American who had 
ever thought upon the subject was determined not 



56 LECTURE II. 

to submit to. Walpole's advisers were not alone 
in their longing for American places and pensions, 
when they advised him to tax America. But Wal- 
pole was almost alone in his wisdom when he an- 
swered that America was already paying her full 
tax in the manner most agreeable to the constitu- 
tion of England and her own. 

Patrick Henry's Resolutions, and the Declaration 
of Rio'hts of the Cono-ress of 1765, brought these 
ideas and convictions, which had been floating to 
and fro in the popular mind, to a definite shape ; 
gave them a form which every one could take in 
at a glance ; expressed them with a distinctness 
which left no room for misinterpi'etation, and a 
solemn earnestness which left no doubt of the 
depth and intensity of the convictions fi'om which 
they sprang. Henceforward American statesmen 
had a chart to guide them in the stormy sea upon 
which they were entering ; a chart whereon many 
of the shoals, many of the rocks they were to 
meet, were not set down, but wliich contained, 
nevertheless, in bold and accurate lines, the course 
they were to steer, and the haven in which they 
might hope for rest. 

Resistance first took the form of retaliation. 
England attempted to reach the American purse 
by taxation. America returned the blow by agree- 
ments of non-importation. England sent out ship- 
loads of tea subject to the new duty. America 
refused to receive it. England knew that America 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 57 

needed her woollens. America stopped eating 
Iamb, and ate very little mutton, that she might 
raise more wool and make woollens of her own. 
Had England's bitterest enemy dictated her policy 
at this critical juncture, he could not have pre- 
scribed a course better adapted to train the Colo- 
nists to resistance, and familiarize them betimes 
with the sacrifices which successful resistance re- 
quired. 

Events followed rapidly. It soon became evi- 
dent that force must be employed ; and Boston 
being the chief sinner, a British garrison was sent 
to overawe Boston. But all that ministers gained 
by their garrison was to bring on a collision be- 
tween the citizens and the soldiers, which embit- 
tered the public mind, and prepared it for further 
resistance. The act of indirect taxation — Charles 
Townshend's act — was modified on commercial 
principles ; the duties on glass, paper, and painters' 
colors were repealed ; a small duty on tea alone 
being left, like the declaratory clause in the repeal 
of the Stamp Act, to establish the right. Minis- 
ters could not see that what they were treating as 
a question of money, America treated as a ques- 
tion of principle. The tea ships came. Some 
were sent back with their cargoes. Some were 
allowed to unload, and the tea stored in cellars and 
other places, where it presently became worthless 
from damp. Boston went a step further, and 
threw it into the bay. Never had King George 

3* 



58 LECTURE II. 

been so insulted before ; and, glowing all over with 
royal indignation, came the Boston Port Bill, and 
the bill for altering the charter of Massachusetts. 

But already the minds and hearts of the Colo- 
nists had been brought into close communication 
by the estabhshment of Committees of Correspond- 
ence ; " the foulest, subtlest, and most venomous 
serpents that ever issued from the egg of sedition," 
says a royalist ; "• the great invention for organiz- 
ing the Revolution," says an historian of the 
United States ; first organized in Massachusetts 
in 1764, but not felt in all their strength till 
their reorganization there in 1772, as a Provin- 
cial measure,"* and in Virginia in 1773, as a Colo- 
nial measure. The chain was now complete in 
all its links. Every pulse-beat of Massachusetts 
throbbed through the Colonies ; every fiery word 
of the great orator of Viro-inia was felt from New 
Hampshire to Georgia ; and every bold resolve, 
every wise counsel, every budding aspiration, was 
transmitted from Colony to Colony for examination 
and approval. Tlie foundations of the Union were 
laid. The Revolution entered upon its last phase ; 
and it was henceforth but a question of a year 
more or a year less, how soon a new Congress 

* " These last [Committees of Correspondence] were engines 
which operated with more energy and consistency than any 
others which were put in motion in the commencement of our 
opposition : they may be called the corner-stone of our revolu- 
tion or new empire." — Mr. Dana to Mr. Gerry, Austin's Life of 
Gerry, Vol L pp. 299, 390. 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 59 

sTiould gather up the rich inheritance of the Con- 
gress of 1765, and declare the independence of the 
Colonies. 

We, with the whole of this past before us, with 
all its scattered elements wrought into an harmoni 
ous series, can see this necessity plainly enough 
But it was by no means so easy to see it then 
Many Americans, who loved their own country de- 
votedly, still clung with lingering affection to the 
country of their forefathers ; watching with sad- 
dened eyes each cherished tie as it snapped asunder, 
and hoping- in hope's despite that some one among 
them might yet prove strong enough to liold parent 
and child together. Of those who thus hoped to 
the last was Washington himself. It may well be 
doubted whether reconciliation was any longer pos- 
sible. Bat the great Congress of 1774 did not 
doubt it, and gave their hopes utterance in a new 
memorial and new addresses, which led to no other 
result than to show how completely they had over- 
rated the heart of the Kino; and the intelligence 
of his ministers. Meanwhile, the country was 
arming. Old soldiers, the veterans of the old 
French war, furbished up their arms. Young 
men met to learn the drill and go through their 
evolutions together. On the 19th of April, 1775, 
the collision between British soldiers and American 
citizens, which had already occurred in the streets of 
New York and Boston, was renewed in the fields of 
Lexington. Too much blood was shed on that holy 



60 LECTURE II. 

day to be forgotten, either by those who shed it or 
those who gave it so freely. On the lOtli of May 
the second Congress met ; and at the dawn of tliat 
same day, before they were yet organized, Ethan 
Allen took possession, in their name, of Ticon- 
deroga, the key of the Canadas. 

Thirteen anxious months, twenty-fonr feverish 
days, were yet to pass befoi"e the irrevocable step 
was taken. But independence had alivady been 
toreseen as a necessity before it was accepted as a 
boon ; and when the solemn declaration was sent 
forth on its errand of justice and meivy, the last 
lingvring hope of ivconciliation had long been ex- 
tinguished in the heart of "Washington. The Rev- 
olution was accomplished ; the AVar of Indepen- 
dence began. 

A war which, at tirst, neither party was pre- 
pared for; of which neither party had compi>?- 
hended tlie magnitude, nor foreseen the duration. 
England had nited the courage of the Colonists too 
low to call out her strength for a serious con- 
test. America had rated her patriotism too high 
to take advantage, as she might and ought to have 
done, of the tirst fervor of popular zeal. Lexing- 
ton and Bunker Hill taught the English to respect 
irivgular tivops. But they respected them too 
much. They taught the Americans to rely upon 
imdisciplined ardor ; but they carried their reliance 
too far. In a few months, the men who had for- 
saken their fields and fiivsides for the camp before 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTIOX. 61 

Boston forsook tlie camp as tlieir terms of service 
expired, and tliev began to think liow profitless 
their fields and lunv lonely their firesides mnst be 
withoiit them. New men came in ^•erv slowly to 
take their places, and the work of instrnction and 
discipline was to be begmi anew at the beginning 
of each campaign. 

The first period of the war covers a series of 
reverses and hnmiliations, imperfectly redeemed 
by occasional success. Washington was firmly 
taking his place as the controlling mind ; but there 
were still some who thought themselves his equiils, 
and a few who tancied themselves his superiors. 
The sm'prise of Trenton, the brilliant winter march 
into the Jerseys, tore away the scales from most 
eyes. Yet more than one still wilfullv turned 
away from tlie light ; men who, having read of 
Caesar and Cromwell, forgot, or failed to see, that 
America was neither corrupt Rome nor aristocratic 
England, — that there were neither the elements 
of a monarchy in her institutions, nor of a usurper 
in her pure-minded leader. And thus new obsta- 
cles were wantonly thro"\%Ti in his wav ; even a 
rival brought forward to divide the public mind, 
and supplant him, if possible, in the pubhc heart. 

The spring, summer, and autumn of 1777 were 
critical moments. England was meditating a fear- 
ful blow ; nothing less than the severing of the 
Eastern from the ^liddle States, by seizing the line 
of the Hudson and opening communication with 



62 LECTURE II. 

Canada by Lake George and Lake Champlain. 
Burgojne was coming down, with his English and 
German veterans, and their Indian alhes. Howe 
was going up, with his ships on the river, and his 
troops on its banks. Severed from her Southern 
sisters, would New England have fallen ? Cut off 
from New England, "with their principal city al- 
ready in the hands of the enemy, their second city 
defenceless, and their long seaboard exposed to 
hourly invasion, could the Middle and Southern 
States have persevered ? Thank God, we need not 
seek to penetrate these recesses of a once possible 
future. It is enough for us to know that His mercy 
spared us the trial, and averted the blow when it 
seemed to be already descending upon otir heads. 

We now know by what human ministry it was 
done. We now know that Charles Lee, then a 
prisoner in New York, brooding over the failure of 
his own schemes of selfish aggrandizement, pre- 
pared for the Howes a plan of operations in the 
South, which, if vigorously carried out, would have 
been no less fatal to our cause than the invasion 
that was threatening us from the North. We 
know that the English General, without accepting 
it in its full extent, accepted it so far as to re- 
nounce his plan of co-operation with Bm'goyne, and 
turn his arms against Philadelphia. Thus Schuy- 
ler was left free to heap up obstacle upon obstacle 
in the path of Burgoyne, and Gates to reap the 
finiit of Schuyler's labors. 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 63 

This, too, was the time when Washington's per- 
sonal enemies were busiest and fullest of hope ; when 
his prudence was condemned as sloth, his caution 
as irresolution ; when his wisest measures were mis- 
represented, and failures, which he had not the 
means to prevent, boldly laid to his charge, be- 
cause it was well known that he would never re- 
veal the secret of his country's weakness to his 
country's enemies in order to shield himself from 
the calumnies of his own. And thus, through cal- 
umny and reproach, the great, good man went 
firmly forward in the path of duty, and cast the 
bold attack of Germantown into the scale which, 
turning wholly towards us by the capitulation of 
Saratoga, gave us the long-coveted alliance with 
France. 

From that time, Washington's superiority Avas 
scarcely disputed. He became the representative 
of the Revolution ; towering above all others in 
America, as Franklin towered above all others in 
Europe. The army looked up to him with rever- 
ence, warmed by love. Citizens acknowledged 
that his virtue was as exalted as his wisdom. And 
Congress, which — no longer the Congress of the 
"Declaration" — had lost much of its hold upon 
the public mind, was mainly indebted to the re- 
spectful deference with which he continued to treat 
it, for that portion of public confidence which it 
still retained. 

The autumn of 1777 and the winter that fol- 



64 LECTURE 11. 

lowed it were the turning points in the war. The 
establishment of Washington's supremacy gave a 
more decided character of unity to our civil as well 
as to our mihtary councils. The moral effect of 
the military successes of the autumn was confirmed 
by the introduction of a miiform system of disci- 
plme and manoeuvre, under the direction of Baron 
Steuben. And Congress had formed the plan of a 
general government under the title of Confedera- 
tion, wliich, with all its imperfections, corrected 
some mistakes, supplied some deficiencies, and pos- 
sessed some of the elements of legislative strength. 
As we look back upon these events fi'om our 
present point of view, with the results as well as 
the causes before us, it is difficult for us to un- 
derstand how anybody could still have doubted 
the success of the Americans. They had a skil- 
ful leader ; they had a powerful ally ; they had 
the early hope of an organized government; they 
had resources which industry, judiciously directed, 
would soon multiply many fold. But to their eyes 
the horizon was still dark with many clouds. Their 
army was half clad, imperfectly equipped, badly 
fed, inadequately paid ; their agriculture was ex- 
posed to the inroads of the enemy, their commerce 
to the enemy's cruisers ; their credit, already low, 
was daily sinking lower ; their currency was chief- 
ly a depreciated and depreciating paper ; and even 
of that there was not enough to meet the daily de- 
mands of the civil and military service. We won- 



PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 65 

der less that some should have doubted, than that 
so many should have continued to hope. Month 
after month wore slowly away. Campaign fol- 
lowed campaign, with a loss here and a gain there, 
a small victory to-day, a small defeat to-morrow ; 
things little changed in the North, but the South 
nearly lost ; and thus we reach the winter of 
1780-81. 

Then began the brilliant period of the war : first, 
that brilliant campaign of a Northern general in 
the Carolinas, — a campaign in which skill sup- 
plied the place of strength, judgment and energy 
created resources, and a leader, who never won a 
decisive victory, never fought a battle by which he 
did not compel his enemy to retreat. Thus Guil- 
ford drove Cornwallis back upon Wilnungton; 
Hobkirk's Hill compelled Lord Rawdon to evacu- 
ate Camden ; the repulse before " Ninety-six " was 
followed by the immediate withdrawal of the Brit- 
ish garrison ; and Eutaw sent the British army, in 
swift retreat, upon Charleston. The year which, 
in Carolina, had opened so auspiciously for the 
British arms, left them nothing at its close but an 
insecure foothold on a narrow strip of coast. 

Equally rapid and equally fatal to their hopes 
was the progress of the campaign in Virginia. 
First Arnold's invasion ; then Cornwallis's ; and 
opposed to them, Lafayette and Steuben, — the gay 
young representative of France, and the gallant 
German who had followed Frederic through the 



6G LECTURE 11. 

Seven Years' War ; and last, that miraculous march 
of the whole Northern army upon Yorktown ; so 
boldly conceived, so judiciously planned, so skilful- 
ly executed, so wonderfully concealed, while con- 
cealment was necessary, and which burst at last 
upon the astonished enemy like a thunder-storm at 
midnight, when the peal and the flash are the first 
that men know of its approach. 

And making possible this triumph of the sword, 
the appointment of Robert Morris as financier, who 
saved his country from bankruptcy, and barely es- 
caped dying in the debtor's prison. 

The infatuation of the King;, the intrioues of 
placemen and men who wanted places, protracted 
the war through another year; adding a few 
rills to the torrents of blood that had already 
been shed, a few broken hearts to the hearts that 
had already been broken ; but independence was 
secure, and the Peace that was formally signed in 
Paris in 1783 had been virtually signed in 1781, 
on the plains of Carolina and in the trenches 
of Yorktown. 



LECTURE III. 

THE CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 

WE have followed tlie Revolution thi'ougli all 
its phases, from the sowing of the seed to the 
gathering in of the abundant harvest. We have 
seen that it began with the Navigation Act of 1660 ; 
that it worked slowly and surely, silently too for 
the most part, though not without occasional indi- 
cations of its progress, till the Congress of 1754 ; 
that it received a new impulse from the old French 
war; and thenceforward, with the mind of New 
England prepared for the reception of its doctrines 
by the contest between monopoly and free labor, 
more persistently waged there than in the sister 
Colonies, it broke out in legal resistance to the writs 
of assistance, in forcible resistance to the Stamp 
Act, and, spreading through the whole country, re- 
ceived a definite direction from the Congress of 
1765 ; an effective organization in the Committees 
of Correspondence ; deliberate expression in the 
tea-question ; and a natural termination in the 
Declaration of Independence. 

We have traced the war rapidly from the camp 



68 LECTURE III. 

before Boston to the French alHance, and the gen- 
eral acceptance of the supremacy of Washing- 
ton, — its period of real doubt and real uncertamty, 
though not the period of greatest suffering, nor, 
except for a few weeks, of deepest depression ; 
and thence to the immortal campaign of 1781 and 
the peace of 1783. 

In going over a subject of such extent, I have 
necessarily taken many things for granted ; have 
often been compelled to trust to your pre\'ious 
reading for my justilication, and may sometimes 
have appeared obscure where I studied to be con- 
cise. I foresee the same difficulty, though not to 
the same degree, in the remainder of our course. 

Our subject this evening is the Congress of the 
Revolution ; and by tlie Revolution, as you have 
already seen, I mean not only the War of Inde- 
pendence, but the change of public sentiment, the 
alteration in the relations between England and 
the Colonies, which produced that war. In both 
of these, Congress bore an important part. 

The first Congress, as well as the first essay of 
union, belong to early colonial history. The first 
union, as I have already said, was that of New 
Euiiland in 1643. The first Cono-ress Avas that of 
New York, in 1690. The suggestion came from 
Massachusetts, and the place first indicated for the 
meetino; was Rhode Island. But this was subse- 
quently changed to New York ; and there, upon 
a call of the General Court of Massachusetts by 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 69 

circular letters, delegates from Massachusetts, Ply- 
mouth, Connecticut, and New York met to pre- 
pare a plan of concerted action for the invasion of 
Canada. And it is worthy of remark that the 
Massachusetts government, which made the call, 
was the government which sprang up between the 
overthow of Andros and the arrival of the new 
charter, and in which the popular element was 
more fi'eely mingled ; and the New York govern- 
ment which accepted it was the government of 
Leisler, which sprang directly from an uprising 
of the people. Thus the earliest utterance of the 
peoj)le's voice was a call for union. 

Far more important, however, was the Albany 
Congress of 1754. Seven Colonies, New York, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the four Colonies of 
New England, stronger by the growth, wiser by 
the experience of another half-century, met in 
Congress, ostensibly to renew the treaty with the 
Six Nations, really, to take counsel together about 
a plan of union and confederacy. In feeling, Vir- 
ginia was witli them also ; but the quarrel between 
her Governor and House of Burgesses rendered it 
impossible for her to send a legal delegation. The 
delegates from Massachusetts came with authority 
to enter at once upon the true subject, and pledge 
her to the union ; for already the Board of Trade 
had inclined its ears to the suggestions of the royal 
Governors ; and salaries, pensions, and sinecures, 
for wliich nothing but taxation could have supplied 



70 LECTURE III. 

the means, floated in dazzling visions before the 
eyes of placemen and courtiers. 

No one doubted the importance of union, — the 
necessity of concerted action. War was at the 
door ; war on the sea-board ; war all along their 
northern and their western frontier. They had 
men and they had money ; but without union nei- 
ther their men nor their money could be made 
subservient to the common welfare. 

On the 19th of June the delegates met, twenty- 
five in all, — local celebrities of their day and gen- 
eration, — earnest and thoughtful men. But wisest 
of them all, and with a wisdom not of his day and 
generation alone, but of all ages, that son of a Bos- 
ton soap-boiler, who was born in ]\:lilk Street, and 
whose serene face looks down upon us, lifehke, 
in Greenough's bronze, as we go through School 
Street. It was impossible that what concerned the 
welfare of the Colonies so nearly should escape the 
keen eye of Benjamin Franklin. He had thought 
of it, indeed, long and deeply and wisely, as was 
his wont ; drawing, perhaps, some ideas from 
Penn's plan of 1697, and Coxe's Corolana, first 
published in 1722, and republished in 1741. But 
whatever entered his plastic mind came out again 
with that mind's impress upon it ; and one of the 
characteristics of that mind was its power of com- 
jireliendiiig present w^ants, and of meeting them, 
not by palliatives, but by remedies. A judicious 
employment of the resources of the Colonies for 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 71 

the protection of the Colonies, was the want ; un- 
ion the remedy. This all saw, all felt. But the 
conditions under which that remedy could best be 
applied were imperfectly seen and understood, both 
in England and in America. 

Franklin, who cheerfully set his name to the 
Declaration of Independence in 1776, had no- 
thought of asking for independence in 1754. That 
it must some day come, that such Colonies would 
sooner or later erow bevond the control of a small 
and distant island, he saw plainly ; — saw it as the 
historian Robertson saw it, and wished to put the 
evil day far off; — as the father of political econo- 
my saw it, and felt that both mother and daughter 
would gain by it. But he felt that the hour was 
not yet come, and that the truest-hearted Ameri- 
can miji'ht still be both loyal to Enjiland and faith- 
ful to the best interests of America. 

Therefore the Union that he asked for was a 
Union in honorable subjection to the crown, leav- 
ing the royal prerogative untouched, while it put 
the rights of the Colonies beyond the reach of fui'- 
ther aggression, — a Union which, leaving to Eng- 
land an indefinite enjoyment of her supremacy, 
should accustom the Colonies to concerted action 
and collective growth, and thus slowly prepare the 
way for the inevitable hourof separation. 

But the Provincial Assemblies, to whom, after 
its acceptance by the Congress, it was referred for 
approval, condemned it as having " too much of 



72 LECTURE III. 

the prerogative in it" ; while it was condemned in 
Enijland as havins: " too much of the democratic." 
And therefore, thought Franklin, when he came 
to look back upon it from a distance of thirty years, 
" it was not far from right." 

The immediate object fiiled ; union was not 
reached ; but men from different Provinces, men 
who had never met before, had passed whole days 
together talking over their common mtercsts and 
common desires ; saying, perhaps, little about 
rights, for they were not yet prepared to sa}^ all 
that they felt about wrongs, but di-awing confi- 
dence from the communication of hopes, and 
strength from the interchange of opinions. Un- 
ion thenceforward became an avowed aspiration, a 
definite subject of thought, and, as a fact, nearer 
by half a century than it was before the Congress 
of Albany met. 

The next Congress was that of 1765 ; still with 
Massachusetts for suggester, and New York — not 
merely the Province this time, but the city itself — 
for place of meeting. Other actors were now on the 
stage, with other questions before them ; other ene- 
mies at the door, to be met on the thifshold and 
alone. The Massachusetts House of Representa- 
tives, deliberating in their June session upon the 
impending Stamp Act, resolved to ask counsel and 
aid of their sister Colonies ; and in their name, 
their Speaker, Samuel White, addressed a circular 
letter to the several assemblies, inviting them " to 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 73 

appoint committees to meet in tlie city of New 
York, on the first Tuesday in October next, to 
consult together on the present circumstances of 
the Colonies, and the difficulties to which they are 
and must be reduced by the operation of the acts 
of Parliament for levying duties on the Colonies, 
and to consider of a general and united, dutiful, - 
loyal, and humble representation of their condition 
to his Majesty and the Parliament, and to implore 
relief." Eight Colonies answered the call. In 
Virginia and North Carolina the Assemblies were 
not in session, and delegates could not be appoint- 
ed without their authorization. Georgia gave in 
her adherence through the Speaker of her Assem- 
bly, but was prevented by her Governor from send- 
ing delegates. In New Hampshire there was a 
strong liberal party, but not yet a strong enough 
one to hazard so decisive a step. 

On Monday the 7th of October, the delegates 
met, — twenty-seven men from nine Colonies, the 
chosen representatives of the representatives of the 
people, brought together by an imperious neces- 
sity, with no recognized place in the constitution, 
and no authority but such as their prudence and 
their wisdom might give them. Their object was 
definite, their purpose clearly set forth in the cir- 
cular letter of the Massachusetts Assembly: they 
came to consult with each other about their com- 
mon dangers, and to implore relief of their com- 
mon sovereign. 

4 



74 [LECTURE III. 

If we would fonn a just estimate of the impor- 
tance of this Congress, we must go back to 1765 ; 
we must rub out all the railroads from our maps ; 
we must imagine sloops instead of steamboats on 
Narragansctt Bay, and Long Island Sound, and 
the broad bosom of the Hudson ; we must see 
them lying at anchor close under the shore, wait- 
ins: for the tide to turn before they vcntui-e to fiice 
the terrors of Hell-Gate or the perils of the High- 
lands ; we must look on that Jersey shore, which 
six ferry-boats an hour have made a part of New 
York city, as separated from it by a body of deep 
and rapid water, which turned woman's cheek pale 
and often made stout men hesitate ; we must see a 
weekly mail slowly creeping along roads, which, 
none too good even in summer, in winter were 
often impassable ; we must remember that men 
had not yet got over wondering that electricity 
and lightning were the same thing, — that even the 
wooden telegraph was not yet invented, — and that 
people, in great emergencies, talked from a dis- 
tance by beacon fires, and sent expresses which 
made folks stare when, by killing a horse or two, 
they succeeded in conveying in twenty-four hours 
intellio-ence that we can send alono; the wires in 
half a minute. 

We must recall all this, if we would understand 
how those twenty-seven men felt when they found 
themselves in the streets of the New York of those 
days, a busy, bustling town, lying comfortably be- 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 75 

low the Park, with Wall Street for the seat of 
fashion, and no crowd to prevent strange faces 
from becoming immediate objects of attention. 
Then James Otis first took John Dickinson by the 
hand ; the fiery denunciator of the writs of assist- 
ance grasping close and binding himself by such 
firm links to the polished reasoner of the Farm- 
er's Letters, that forty years later, long, long 
after that spirit which shone so brightly in the 
opening scenes of the Revolution had passed, 
through madness, to the grave, the gentler-souled 
Pennsylvanian still loved to dwell on these days as 
a pleasing recollection, and " soothe his mind " 
on the brink of his own grave by bearing " pure 
testimony " to the worth of his departed friend. 
Then Lynch and Gadsden and John Rutledge 
of South Carolina first sat on the same bench 
with Thomas McKean and Cesar Rodney of 
the counties that were to become Delaware, and 
Philip Livingston of New York, and Dyer of Con- 
necticut, to compare feelings and wishes, as, ten 
years later, Avhen the horizon, now so dark, was al- 
ready glowing with the swift a])proach of day, they 
were to meet and compare them again. If the 
Congress of '65 had done nothing more than bring 
such men together, it would still have rendered in- 
estimable service to the common cause. But it 
did far more. 

They met to petition for relief, and they did pe- 
tition ; but in language so firm, with such a strong 



76 LECTURE III. 

sense of their rights, such a perfect understanding 
of their position, sucli a clear perception of their 
claim to be heard, for England's sake as well as 
their own, that their petition became a manifesto. 

They reminded the King that they had grown 
up under governments of their OAvn, governments 
framed in the spirit of the English constitution; 
that nurtured by this spirit, and freely spending 
their blood and treasure, they had added vast 
domains to the British empire ; that they held 
their connection with Great Britain to be their 
greatest happiness ; but that liberty and justice 
were the best means of preserving that connection, 
and that the public faith was pledged for the pres- 
ervation of their rights. Seldom have such mo- 
mentous truths been compressed within so narrow 
a compass as the paragraph in which they remon- 
strate against the Stamp Act and Admiralty Act, 
contrasting, with a skill the ablest rhetorician might 
have envied, the advantages which England might 
draw from her Colonies properly governed, with 
the loss she would incur by governing them as 
Parliament had undertaken to govern them ; and 
characterizing the assumption by the House of 
Commons " of the right to dispose of the property 
of their fellow-citizens in America without their 
consent," in a few grave words whose very calm- 
ness gives them all the bitterness of satii'e, and 
which furnished Chatham with the substance of 
one of his most striking bursts of eloquence. Sim- 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 77 

pie, earnest, and almost pathetic in the close, they 
appeal to the King's paternal love and benevolent 
desires for the ha])piness of all his people, and 
invoke his interposition for their relief. That 
George the Third should have read this petition 
unni()vt'(l sliows how partially they had judged the 
royal heart, and how imperfectly he had read the 
heart of the people. 

The substance of the memorial to the House of 
Lords is the same as that of the petition to the 
King ; the language equally sober and simple, but 
the tone somewhat more elevated, as became the 
subjects of a constitutional monarchy in addressing 
their fellow-subjects. In the petition to the Com- 
mons they enter more fully into the various bear- 
ings of the question, and with a passage or two 
which, with a very little emphasis on prominent 
words, would sound wonderfully like deliberate 
irony. Both in the petition and the memorial they 
ask to be heard by counsel. 

This much for King and Parliament. For the 
people, telling the English people what they must 
be prepared to grant and the American people 
what they must be prepared to assert and defend, 
they sent foi-th a declaration of rights and griev- 
ances in thirteen clauses, claiming the right of 
taxing themselves, either personally or by repre- 
sentatives of their own choosing, the right of trial 
by jury, and the right of petition. Each clause 
forms part of a continuous chain ; each leads to the 



78 LECTURE III. 

other as its logical conclusion ; there is not a clause 
too much, not a word too much. Never had state 
papers spoken a language more decent, more direct, 
more firm, — freer from conventional forms, profes- 
sional subtleties, and rhetorical embellishment. 

And having done this, the Congress dissolved. 
The members returned to their homes with minds 
and hearts strengthened by common deliberations 
and common labor ; with a better knowledge than 
they had ever had before of the wishes and feel- 
ings of their fellow-Colonists, for it was the result 
of personal intercourse ; and a firmer resolution to 
stand by each other in the impending contest, for 
they had thrown down the gauntlet together, and 
pledged themselves to abide the issue. 

And now comes the Congress of 1774, the first 
Continental Congress, not merely to tell England 
wherein America felt herself wronged, but to tell 
America what it behooved her to do in order to 
obtain redress for her wrongs. So strong a hold 
had the idea of Congress and Union taken of the 
general mind, that the call came almost simultane- 
ously from different Provinces ; Virginia, Pennsyl- 
vania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Mas- 
sachusetts, taking up the subject within a few days 
of each other, and acting with a unanimity which, 
if statesmen had been at the head of affliirs in 
England, would have been accepted as proof that 
forbearance was fast yielding to indignation. Rhode 
Island went even a step beyond her sisters, assert- 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 79 

ing the necessity of a firm and inviolable Union 
of all the Colonies in counsels and measures foi 
the pi'eservation of their rights and liberties, and 
proposing annual meetings of Congress as a means 
of enforcing it. Nor was the idea of a Congress 
confined to Americans at home, living and acting 
under the immediate influence of the feelings and 
passions of the hour. Americans abroad saw the 
necessity of it, and already, as early as the 2d of 
April, Arthur Lee had urged it in a letter from 
London to his brother in Virginia. 

Thus, under auspicious influences, and at a mo- 
ment that called for such a measure of prudence, 
forecast, firmness, and self-control as has rarely been 
granted to mortals, did these great men come to- 
gether. 

Of their deliberations and individual opinions, 
we unfortunately know little. They dehberated 
with closed doors, and, passing over processes, 
published only results. There was no gallery of 
watchful reporters there, to catch every burning 
word that fell from the lips of Henry, or Adams, 
or Lee; to tell how cunningly Joseph Galloway 
strove to mould them to his will ; how restless John 
Adams grew under the sober reasonings of John 
Dickinson ; how George Washington sat, thought- 
ful, grave, calmly biding his time, prepared for 
remonstrance, for resistance, for everything but the 
splendor of his own immortality. We know that 
there were many doubts, many hesitations, many 



80 LECTURE III. 

waiin discussions ; but we know also that the 
spirit of an exalted patriotism prevailed over them 
all, and that Avhen at last their voice was heard 
it came forth as the utterance of a calm, deep- 
rooted, and unanimous conviction. 

It was Monday morning on the 5th of Septem- 
ber that they first met in Carpenter's Hall, Phil- 
adelphia ; forty-four at the opening, soon to be 
fifty-two when all the delegates were come in. 
Like the Congress of 1765, they were still a body 
unknown to the constitution, and depending solely 
upon the wisdom of their acts for the confirmation 
of them. Part of them had been appointed by their 
Provincial Assemblies, part by County Commit- 
tees, part by Committees of Correspondence; — a 
diversity of origin characteristic of the times — for 
the royal Governors and the Provincial Assemblies 
were necessarily at variance upon these grave ques- 
tions — and illustrative also of the readiness with 
which the people applied the forms of government 
to measures which government refused to sanction. 

Familiar with legislation, they proceeded at once 
to organize ; complimenting, on the motion of 
Lynch of South Carolina, the first official appear- 
ance of the powex'ful Colony of Virginia among 
her sisters, by making Peyton Randolph their 
President ; complimenting Pennsylvania, by choos- 
ing for Secretary Charles Thompson, formerly a 
schoolmaster, now a rich man by marriage, — 
thin, wrinkled, with deep-set, sparkling eyes, and 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 81 

straight, gray hair, not long enough to reach his 
ears, — "the Hfe of the cause of hberty," Phila- 
delphians said, and Avhose name, in his own firm, 
clear hand, looks so familiar, even at this distance 
of almost a hundred years. 

Thus far all ran smoothly, although there had 
been a slight hesitation about the Secretary on the 
part of two New-Yorkers, Jay and Duane. But 
now came the fiery ordeal, for, as they proceeded 
to make their rules, the question, " How shall we 
vote ? " met them full in the foce. There was no 
avoiding it, no putting it off; for it contained the 
fundamental principle of their Union, of all unions 
of unequal elements, — how to jireserve the rights 
of the smaller members without encroaching upon 
those of the larger members. 

" Government is dissolved," said Patrick Henry, 
in those tones which had often thrilled the Vir- 
ginia Burgesses. " Where are your landmarks, 
your boundaries of Colonies ? We are in a state 
of nature, sir. The distinctions between Virgini- 
ans, Pennsylvanians, New-Yorkers, and New-Eng- 
landers are no more. I am not a Viro-inian, but 
an American ! " And renouncino; his first intention 
of insisting upon a vote by numbers, he declared 
himself ready to submit, if overruled, and give all 
the satisfaction in his power. Others, too, had 
their opinions, — the result of long and earnest 
meditation ; but they knew how to distinguish be- 
tween the surrender of a principle and the post- 

4* F 



82 LECTURE III. 

ponement of a discussion ; and, making an entry 
on their journal that the rule was not to be drawn 
into precedent, they agreed to vote by Colonies, 
and give each Colony an equal vote. 

Then Gushing of Massachusetts moved that 
Congress should be opened by prayer ; and when 
Jay and Rutledge opposed it, because " they were 
too much divided in religious sentiment to unite 
in one form of prayer," the Congregationalist 
Samuel Adams arose, and, saying that piety, virtue, 
and love of covmtry were his only tests, moved that 
the Episcopalian Duch^ should be asked to read 
prayers the next morning according to the Episco- 
pal form. And when morning came, Duche, ar- 
rayed in his canonical robes, was introduced to the 
assembly ; and read the solemn morning service 
of the Church, while his clerk gave the responses, 
and Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Congregationalists, 
and Quakers, some kneeling, and some standing 
up, but all mingled and confounded together, lis- 
tened with decent reverence. When he came to 
the psalm of the day, the thirty-fifth psalm, David's 
heart-cry to God for deliverance from his enemies, 
a sudden thrill went through the assembly ; for they 
called to mind the tidings which had reached them 
the day before, that the British troops were firing 
upon Boston, and felt as if God's own finger had 
pointed out to them the appropriate language of 
supplication. Then, too, a sudden inspiration 
warmed the timid heart of the clergyman, and, 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 83 

closing his prayer-book, he broke forth into an ex- 
temporaneous prayer for Congress, for the Province 
of Massachusetts Bay, and especially for the poor 
devoted town of Boston ; and in words so earnest, 
in such thrilling and pathetic tones, that every 
heart was stirred, and every eye was wet. 

The appointment of the committees followed 
next ; one composed of two delegates from each 
Province, to draft a Bill of Rights ; and another 
of one delegate from each Province, to report upon 
the statutes that affected the trade and manufac- 
tures of the Colonies. A great concession had 
already been made by the larger Colonies, and 
now, as they met with equal voices upon the com- 
mon ground which they had made for themselves, 
all knew that in the question before them all other 
questions were involved. For the enumeration of 
their rights was the proclamation of their wrongs ; 
and great was the need of Aveighing well their 
words, and making their foundations sure. Hard- 
est of all was the part of the delegates from Mas- 
sachusetts. The sympathy with Boston was uni- 
versal. Their journey to Philadelphia had seemed 
more like a royal progress than the journey of the 
representatives of an oppressed people going to ask 
for sympathy and succor. Committees from the 
principal towns met them on their way, and their 
entrance was hailed by the ringing of bells and 
firing of cannon. They were invited to lodge in 
private houses, and feasted with the fat of the land. 



84 LECTURE III. 

But as they drew nigh to their journey's end, they 
were admonished that doubts of their intentions 
had gone before them, that they were accused of 
aiming directly at independence, and that their 
words would be weighed in a nicer bakmce than 
the words of those who had suffered less. Then 
John Adams reined in his fiery spirit, and Samuel 
Adams, constrainiuo- his nature, was content for a 
while to follow where he had been accustomed to 
lead. 

But fortunately there were other men there pre- 
pared to go resolutely forward, and without at- 
tempting to deceive themselves as to whither the 
path might lead them. " Our rights are built on 
a fourfold foundation," said Richard Henry Lee ; 
" on nature, on tlic British Constitution, on char- 
ters, and on immemorial usage. The Navigation 
Act is a capital violation of them "; and he could 
not see Avhy they should not lay their rights on 
the broadest bottom, — the law of nature. " There 
is no allegiance without protection ! " said John 
Jay, " and emigrants have a right to erect what 
government they please. I have always withheld 
my assent from the position tliat every man dis- 
covering land does it for the state to which he be- 
longs." 

" The Colonies," said Roger Sherman, " ai'e 
not bound to the King or crown by the act of set- 
tlement, but by their consent to it. There is no 
otlier legislature over them but their respective as- 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 85 

semblies. They adopt the common law, not as the 
common law, but as the highest reason." 

But Rutledjio thouo;ht that the British constltu- 
tion gave them a sufficient foundation ; and Duane, 
that the law of nature would be a feeble support. 
Joseph Galloway talked learnedly of Greece and 
Rome, of Saxons and Normans, and tried to look 
bold as he said : " I have ever thought we might 
reduce our rights to one, an exemption from all 
laws made by British Parliament since the emigra- 
tion of our ancestors. It follows, therefore, that 
all the acts made since are violations of our 
rights." Adding, — and how his cheeks must 
have burned as he said it, — "I am well aware 
that my remarks tend to independency." 

"A most ingenious, interesting debate," wrote 
John Adams in his diary on the evening of the 
first day. But he soon grew anxious for a conclu- 
sion ; which, however, was not reached till after 
many discussions, and in the form of a partial com- 
promise. Still, the great end was attained. The 
men of twelve Colonies — Georgia was not rep- 
resented in this Congress — had talked together 
freely about their obligations and their rights ; had 
brought their duties as subjects to the standard of 
their rights as men ; had counted, one by one, the 
links in the chain of their allegiance, and found 
that it did not reach far enough to make them 
slaves. 

There was :>ne grave moment in the general de- 



86 LECTURE UL 

bate, — the moment wlien Joseph Galloway intro- 
duced his insidious plan for a union between Great 
Britain and the Colonies ; a plan so specious and 
so ingeniously defended, that even the clear-headed 
Jay was " led to adopt it," and that upon the final 
trial it failed by only one vote, — but a plan which, 
like all temporizing with principle, would have 
merely })ut off upon the children the work that 
Heaven had appointed for the fathers ; and what 
such puttings-off lead to, we, not as the children of 
those brave men of 1776, but as the heirs of the 
first generation of compromisers, have seen and 
felt, — have seen with eyes dimmed by tears that 
will not be stayed, have felt with hearts that can- 
not be comforted. God forbid that we should en- 
tail the curse upon future generations! 

By the 26th of October their work was completed. 
They had prepared a Bill of Rights, and an enu- 
meration of the acts whereby those rights had been 
violated. They had prepared an address to the 
King, an address to the people of Great Britain, a 
memorial to the inhabitants of the British Prov- 
inces, an address to the inhabitants of the Prov- 
ince of Quebec, and an association for non-impor- 
tation. 

The Bill of Rights, covering the same ground 
with the Bill of Rights of the first Congress, starts 
from a higher point, the imnuitable laws of nature, 
and shows, by its fuller development of the princi- 
ples common to both, that the seed sown in 1765 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 87 

had not fallen on stony ground. Nothing could 
be firmer, more manly, or more explicit, than the 
language of the addresses and memorials ; dutiful, 
respectful, solemnly earnest, to the King; clear, 
firm, direct, with a mixture of grave exhortation 
and sober remonstrance, to their fellow-subjects. 
" When your Lordships look at the papers trans- 
mitted to us from America," said Lord Chatham in 
one of those attempts to awaken his colleagues to 
a sense of their injustice, which have made his 
name so dear to Americans, " when you consider 
their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot 
but respect the cause and wish to make it your 
own." The agreement of non-importation, non- 
exportation, and non-consumption was the same in 
principle with that which had been tried so suc- 
cessfully against the Stamp Act ; although it had 
proved ineffectual against the later encroachments 
of England. Like the question of voting, it was a 
severe test of the sincerity of the desire for union. 
But many looked to it with full confidence ; and 
with an exception in favor of rice, to propitiate 
South Carolina, it received the official signature of 
every member. " Negotiation, suspension of com- 
merce, and war, are the only three things," said 
John Jay. "War is, by general consent, to be 
waived at present. I am for negotiation and sus- 
pension of commerce." 

Then, having also taken care to recommend the 
calling of a second Congress, the First Continental 



88 LECTURE III. 

Congress dissolved, and John Dickinson could con- 
gratulate Josiali Quincy on the hearty union of all 
America, from Nova Scotia to Georgia, in the 
common cause. And when the report of their pro- 
ceedings reached London, Josiah Quincy wrote to 
his friends : " Permit me to congratulate my coun- 
tx'ymen upon the integrity and wisdom with which 
the Congress have conducted. Their policy, 
spirit, and union have confounded their foes and 
inspired their friends." 

To crown the triumph of patriotism, it was 
known that large sums had been sent to New York 
to bribe the delegates ; that this infamous attempt 
at corruption was openly avowed and vindicated ; 
and that the partisans of the ministers had boasted 
loudly of their success. 

But how did calm and thoughtful men feel as 
they endeavored to look into the fiiture ? how did 
John Dickinson feel, that sober-minded, sincere, 
but not sanguine man, who had done so much to- 
wards diffusing correct opinions upon the question 
of taxation by Parliament ? "I wish for peace 
ardently," said he, " but must say, delightful as it 
is, it will come more grateful by being unexpect- 
ed. The Colonists have now taken such ground? 
that Great Britain must i-elax, or inevitably involve 
herself in a civil war." Some hoped that she 
would relax. " Conviction," wrote James Level, 
" must be the consequence of a bare admission of 
light." 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 89 

It was soon seen that light was not to reach the 
eyes of the King, nor to be permitted to reach the 
ejes of the people ; and therefore, on the 10th of 
May, 1775, a new Congress convened. Already 
the battle of Lexington had been fought ; already 
an indignant yeomanry had gathered to the siege of 
the British army in Boston ; already defences were 
risino;, men were enrollins; throughout the land. 
Twice had the representatives of the people come 
together to remonstrate and petition, to appeal to 
the reason of their fellow-subjects, and invoke the 
protection of their King. They now met for ac- 
tion ; to appeal, if needs be, to the sword, and 
invoke the protection of their God. Independence 
lay in their path, and, thick set as that path was 
with obstacles and dangers, they were not the men 
to falter or turn aside when the only alternative 
was slavery. 

This time they assembled, not in Carpenter's 
Hall, the gathering-place of a private association, 
but, as beseemed the acknowledged representa- 
tives of a great people, in the State-House, in that 
fine old hall which Philadelphia, with a wise grat- 
itude, has carefully preserved from desecration ; to 
which the chairs and tables which they used have 
been brought back with pious care, and on whose 
walls, thick-clustering with holy associations, hang 
the portraits of the founders of our Union, — of the 
men who, by the great things which they did there, 
and the wise things that they said there, have 



90 LECTURE III. 

made it a temple on whose altars the profoundest 
statesman may humbly lay down his laurels, and 
from whose oracles faltering patriots may learn to 
put their trust in God. 

It is impossible to conceive a situation more be- 
set witli dilhculties, a path more absolutely hedged 
in with thorns and bi'iers, than that of the Congress 
which met in riiiladelphia on the 10th of May, 
1775, and proclaimed the birth of a new nation on 
the 4th of July, 1776. Builders like to begin on 
clear ground, where they can see their way from 
the first, lay their foundations surely, and put ev- 
ery stone in its place, from the corner-stone to 
the key-stone of the arch. But our builders found 
themselves in the midst of ruins ; and it was only 
by a careful clearing away of the rubbish that they 
could roach those solid I'oundations which still lay 
unimpaired under the dust and fragments of a tran- 
sient superstructure. Out of the ruins of royal 
and parliamentary authority they had to frame a 
supreme legislature ; in place of that dependence 
upon England which had so long bound them to 
the fortunes of a single country, they had alliances 
to form wherever their interests required it. The 
Act of Navigation was to be thrown aside, and their 
ports opened to all comers. To protect the com- 
merce which they hoped soon to see growing rap- 
idly up imder auspicious influences, they had to 
build, arm, and man a navy, and provide for its 
support ; and to protect themselves, to protect their 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 91 

cities and their fiirms, from the wanton violence of 
a ruthless soldiery, they had to organize an army, 
and place at its head a man who cotild guide and 
control its energy without abusing their confi- 
dence. And all this had to be done by general 
consent, in spite of open and covert opposition, 
with a powerful enemy all ready to crush them, 
and an insidious enemy constantly on the watch 
to turn against them every error of haste, or im- 
providence, or oversight. 

When they first met, fresh from the people, and 
with vivid recollections of Avhat their own eyes had 
seen in their own homes, there was an ajipearance 
of harmony among them which promised firm, 
prom})t, and united action. But every act on their 
part was a step towards independence. Which- 
ever way tliey turned, independence still seemed 
to meet them at the end of the path. Every road 
led equally to it. It formed a part of every ques- 
tion, entered directly or indirectly, either as a prin- 
ciple or as an illustration, into every discussion, 
warming some minds with visions of wealth, and 
power, and glory, and striking terror into others 
by images of confiscation and the scaffold. 

Some would have begun by assuming all the 
powers of government, and proceeded at once to 
open their ports, organize an army, build a navy, 
prepare themselves to meet the enemy at every 
point, and thus discuss the question of reconcilia- 
tion with arms in their hands. Others were will- 



92 LECTURE III. 

ing to arm in order to repel aggression, but they 
would have carefully avoided every act and every 
expression which wore the appearance of an inten- 
tion to change self-defence into attack. Many 
still continued to flatter themselves with the same 
hopes by which they had already been so often de- 
luded. They hoped that the King would relent. 
They hoped that the English people would rise 
against an oppressive ministry. They hoped that 
there mio;ht still be streno-th enoufrli in the ties of 
blood, intelligence enough in the instinct of in- 
terest, to bring them all once more together as the 
children of comnu)n ancestors, and members of one 
great and glorious association. 

These hopes were continually fanned by the par- 
tisans of England, — ever ready with pretexts and 
excuses, skilled in all the dangerous arts of retard- 
ment, knowing well Avhen to promise and when 
to threaten. Of especial use to them were the 
tidings of the appointment of English commission- 
ers, who were speedily to come with an olive- 
branch in their hands, heal all dissensions, and 
reinstate the colonies in all their rights. 

And this gave to the councils of Congress an 
appearance of fluctuation which was attended Avith 
serious inconveniences. " One day," wrote Sam- 
uel Ward, one of the calmest and wisest among 
them, " measures for carrying on the war were 
adopted; the next, nothing must be done which 
would widen the unhappy breach between Great 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 93 

Britain and the Colonics." Some were seen to 
turn pale when John Adams, carried away by his 
ardent temperament and deep convictions, pro- 
posed measui'es that would have brought things to 
an immediate crisis. 

How could it be otherwise with the question of 
trade before them? for in this question more than 
in any other were comprehended the question of 
Independence, and the question of that Union 
without which independence could neither be won 
nor worth the winning. To throw open their ports 
to other nations was to annul the Act of Naviga- 
tion, a step little short of a declaration of inde- 
pendence, and which must be promptly followed 
by the organization of State governments and of a 
central government. John Adams saw this, and 
urged it expressly with tliis view. His opponents 
saw it, and resisted it with equal persistency. 

Then, too, men were far from seeing clearly into 
the economical principles involved in the regula- 
tion of trade. The father of political economy had 
just put the manuscript of his great work into the 
hands of the printer, and truths which he has 
made familiar to school-boys had not yet dawned 
upon the minds of statesmen. 

" We ought," said Lee, " to stop our own ex- 
ports, and invite foreign nations to come and export 
for us. The provisions of America are needed, 
and foreigners must come for them." But Wil- 
ling, a Philadelphia merchant, could not be for in- 



94 LECTURE III. 

viting foreigners to become their carriers. " Car- 
riage is an amazing revenue. Holland and England 
have derived their maritime power from it." Liv- 
ingston, from commercial New York, was for doing 
away with the non-exportation agreement entirely, 
except in the articles of lumber and tobacco. Chase 
was sure that the nation must soon grow rich which 
exports more than it imports. Edward Rutledge 
of South Carolina w^as equally sure that men could 
be taken from the plough and engaged in man- 
ufactures. The Swiss Zubly, who represented 
Georgia, and who, as he said, having been famil- 
iar with a republican government ever since he 
was six years old, knew that it was little better 
than a " government of devils," was " for using 
American virtue as sparingly as possible lest they 
should wear it out." Livingston's proposition to 
except lumber and tobacco — the chief staples 
of three important Colonies — was met by the 
assertion that it would lead to disunion. Gads- 
den was for confining the question to one point, — 
"Shall we shut up our ports and be all on a 
footing ? Mankind act by their feelings ; distinc- 
tions will divide us ; one Colony will be jealous 
of another." 

Equally embarrassing Avas the question started 
by the proposal to recommend to the Provincial 
governments " to arrest and secm'e every person 
in then' respective Colonies whose going at large 
might, in their opinion, endanger the safety of the 
Colony, or the liberties of America." 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 95 

This was war indeed. Could it be done ? "Was 
the time for such a step yet come ? Johnson of 
Virginia confessed that he " saw less and less pros- 
pect of a reconciliation each day ; still he would 
not render it impossible." The assistance of 
France and Spain was mentioned. Zubly fired 
up : " Some men were for breaking off with Great 
Britain ; men who should propose to his constitu- 
ents to apply to France and Spain, would be torn 
in pieces like De Witt." 

Rhode Island, which from the beginning had 
looked upon prompt action as the wisest course, de- 
liberately threw another apple of discord into the 
assembly ; nothing less than a proposition to build 
a navy. It was received almost with derision. 
Nobody out of the little phalanx of far-seeing and 
resolute men, who felt too sure of the future to hes- 
itate about the present, would hsten to it. A few 
were for taking it into consideration as a mark of re- 
spect to an independent Province, and then killing 
it with parliamentary decency. It was put off, by 
resolve, fr^om week to week, with a fatal loss of 
time in the actual condition of our military sup- 
plies, which could come only by sea. At last, a 
committee was appointed, and out of the delibera- 
tions of that committee grew our glorious Ameri- 
can navy, the protector of our commerce, the de- 
fender of our flag, the best mediator in our differ- 
ences with foreign powers, the sight of whose 
frowning batteries on a distant coast fills the heart 



96 LECTURE III. 

of the American traveller with such emotions of 
confidence and pride, — so honorable, throughout 
the whole course of its history, to our skill, our 
enterprise, our daring, to everything but our 
gratitude. 

There was less difficulty in agreeing upon meas- 
ures for the encouragement of manufactures, ag- 
riculture, the arts and sciences ; and no serious 
difficulty, as far as the records show, in forming 
boards for the administration of the different de- 
partments. 

But should they again petition the King, whom 
they had already petitioned in vain ? Even this 
was conceded to the timid, to John Dickinson 
more especially, whose fluent pen was employed in 
repeating the thrice-told tale. And the American 
olive-branch, America's last appeal to the royal 
heart, was intrusted to John Penn, a grandson 
of the founder of Pennsylvania. 

Thus slowly and cautiously they moved, but still 
onward. And before many months were passed, 
they had assumed full authority, executive, legisla- 
tive, and in some instances even judicial. 

They had solemnly laid at England's door the 
guilt of the first bloodshed. They had met the 
royal proclamation of the 23d of August, declar- 
ing them rebels, and threatening them with the 
punishment of rebels, by an indignant denial of 
the accusation, and a bold resolve to meet the 
punishment by retaliation. They had formed a 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 97 

committee for corresponding with their friends in 
Europe, and sent Silas Deane to open negotiations 
for obtaining supplies of arms from France, and 
preparing the way for commercial intercourse. 

They had resolved that no supplies should be 
furnished the British army or navy, no bills of ex- 
change negotiated for British officers ; that no Co- 
lonial ships should transport British troops. They 
had taken the army before Boston into the service 
of the United Colonies, had made provision for its 
pay and support, and had given it Washington for 
commander-in-chief. Every day seemed to make 
the path of duty clearer. England herself appeared 
resolved to leave them no pretext for hesitation. 
It was of the last importance that Congress should 
not go too fast for the people ; that the people 
should not weaken the influence of Congress by 
putting themselves in the advance. " The novelty 
of the thing deters some," wrote Franklin in April, 
"the doubt of success others, the vain hope of 
conciliation many. But our enemies take con 
tinually every proper measure to remove these 
obstacles, and their endeavors are attended with 
success, since every day furnishes us with new 
causes of increasing enmity, and new reasons for 
wishing an eternal separation ; so that there is a 
rapid increase of the formerly small party who 
were for an independent government." " My 
countrymen," wrote Washington in the same 
month, and speaking of Virginia, "I know, from 
5 o 



98 LECTURE III. 

their form of government, and steady attachment 
heretofore to royalty, will come reluctantly into 
the idea of independence ; but time and persecu- 
tion bring many wonderful things to pass." John 
Adams, as he tried to curb his impatience, had 
likened the country to " a large fleet sailing under 
convoy ; the fleetest sailors must wait for the dull- 
est and slowest." 

At last, in that same month of April, while 
Franklin, on his way to Canada as a Congress com- 
missioner, wrote from Saratoga the lines I have 
read you, and Washington his liopes from Cam- 
bridge, John Adams Avas enabled to write from 
Philadelphia : " The ports are opened wide enough 
at last, and privateers are allowed to prey upon 
British trade. This is not independency, you 
know. What is? Why, governments in every 
Colony, a confederation among them all, and trea- 
ties with foreiorn nations to acknowledfje us a sov- 
ereign, and all that. When these things will be 
done, or any of them, time must discover. Per- 
haps the time is near ; perhaps a great way oif." 
And a fortnight afterward, for the signs were hourly 
brightening : " As to declarations of independency, 
be patient. Read our privateering laws and our 
commercial laws. What signifies a word ? " 

At length he saw that the hour was come, and 
on the 6th of INIay introduced his resolution for the 
institution of State governments. On the 10th it 
was passed, in these most pregnant words : " That 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 99 

it be recommended to the respective assemblies and 
conventions of the United Colonies, where no gov- 
ernment sufficient to the exigence of their affairs 
hath been hitherto established, to adopt such gov- 
ernment as shall, in the opinion of the represent- 
atives of the people, best conduce to the happiness 
of their constituents in particular and America in 
general." On the 15tli, a preamble was added, 
stating, as the grounds of their resolve, their exclu- 
sion, by act of Parliament, from the protection of 
the crown ; the King's refusal to answer their pe- 
tition ; the warlike preparations against them, and 
the consequent necessity of suppressing the exer- 
cise of every kind of authority under the crown. 

" When I consider the great events which are 
passed," wrote John Adams, two days afterwards, 
" and those greater which are rapidly advancing, 
^nd that I may have been instrumental in touch- 
ing some springs and turning some small wheels, 
I feel an awe upon my mind which is not easily 
described. Great Britain has at last driven Amer- 
ica to the last step, a complete separation from her ; 
a total, absolute independence, not only of her Par- 
liament, but of her crown ; for such is the amount 
of the resolve of the 15th. There is something 
very unnatural and odious in a government a thou- 
sand leacfues off. A whole government of our own 
choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, 
and can confide in, has charms in it for which men 
wiU fight." 



100 LECTURE III. 

Five Colonies had already expressly authorized 
their delegates to vote for independence ; and 
while on that memorable 15th of May, twin birth- 
day of our nation, John Adams was reporting to 
Congress the compi-ehensive and energetic pream- 
ble to the resolve of the 10th, Virginia was voting 
instructions to her delegates to unite with their col- 
leagues in the decisive act of separation. 

On the 7th of June, says the Journal of Con- 
gress, " Certain resolutions respecting indepen- 
dency being moved and seconded, Resolved, that 
the consideration of them be referred till to-morrow 
morning, and that the members be ordered to at- 
tend punctually at ten o'clock, in order to take the 
same into their consideration." On that morrow 
they were discussed in committee of the whole, 
and a second sitting ordered for Monday the 10th, 
when, after full discussion, it was resolved, " That 
the discussion of the first resolution be postponed 
to Monday, the first day of July next ; and in the 
mean while, that no time be lost, in case the Con- 
gress agree thereto, that a committee be appointed 
to prepare the declaration to the effect of the said 
first resolution, which is in these words : That 
these United Colonies are, and of rio-ht oug-ht to 
be, free and independent States ; that they are ab- 
solved from all allegiance to the British crown ; 
and that all political connection between them and 
the state of Great Britain is and ought to be to- 
tally dissolved." Congress transacted no further 
business that day. 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 101 

On the following day the committee was cho- 
sen : Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, Sherman, 
and Robert R. Livingston. And immediately after 
it was resolved, " That a committee be appointed 
to prepare and digest the form of a confederation 
to be entered into between these Colonies " ; and, 
" That a committee be appointed to prepare a 
plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers." 

The 1st of July came. All the delegates but 
those of New York had now^ received the instruc- 
tions of their constituents, and all been authorized 
to vote for independence. One voice was raised 
against it, as yet premature ; the persuasive voice 
of John Dickinson, always heard with respect. 
One voice was raised in its defence, the vehement 
voice of John Adams. But no discussion was 
needed. At the request of South Carolina the 
final vote was postponed to the next day ; and 
then, on Tuesday, the 2d of July, twelve Colonies 
united in the resolve, " That these United Colo- 
nies are, and of right ought to be, free and inde- 
pendent States." 

The Declaration of Independence had already 
been reported from the committee. Another day 
— the 3d — was partly employed in discussing 
it. And on the 4th, authenticated by the sig- 
natures of John Hancock as President, and Charles 
Thompson as Secretary, it was sent to the printer. 
On the 2d of August, fairly engrossed on parch- 
ment and made unanimous by the adhesion of 



102 LECTURE III. 

New York, it received the signatures of all the 
members present as the unanimous " Declaration " 
of the thirteen United States of America. 

And a jojHful shout went up from all the land ; 
fi'om inland hamlet and sea-side town ; from work- 
shop and field, where fathers could henceforth 
eat their bread cheerfully, even in the sweat of 
their brows, — for they knew that their children 
would inherit tlie fi'uit of their labors, and receive 
and transmit unimpau'ed the precious birthright of 
freedom. Tlie solemn words were read at the head 
of the army drawn out in full array, and welcomed 
by the waving of banners and the booming of can- 
non. They were read from the pulpit while heads 
were bowed reverently in prayer, and hearts glowed 
as at a visible manifestation of the will of God. 
They crossed the ocean, waking strange fears in 
palaces, Avhispering soothing hopes in hovv4s, tell- 
ing the poor and oppressed and down-tfodd^n of 
every land that an asylum had been opened for 
them in fertile regions bevond the ocean, where 
industry was unfettered and thought was uncon- 
trolled. 

And still, as we look back to that auspicious day, 
we bless God that he imparted to our fathers so 
large a measure of his own wisdom ; that he 
breatlied into their councils such a spirit of calm, 
resolute, and hopeful zeal ; that he put uito their 
mouths words of such comprehensive truth that 
through all time, as each successive generation 



CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 103 

draws nearer to the law of universal brotherhood, 
it will but develop more fullj the principle by 
which these United States first took their place 
among the nations, — "that all men are eqviallj 
entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness." 



LECTURE IV. 



CONGRESS AND THE STATE GOVERNMENTS 
OF THE REVOLUTION. 

WE have seen that in the history of our coun- 
try Congress and Union have always gone 
hand in hand together. We have seen that the 
Congress of 1690 was convened in order to give a 
common direction to the energies of the Northern 
Colonies in an attack upon Canada ; that the Al- 
bany Congress of 1754 came together with the 
wish for a more lasting union upon its lips ; that 
the New York Congress of 1765 built its hopes 
of redress upon the common sense of wrong as ex- 
pressed in a common remonstrance and appeal ; 
that the Congress of 1774 assumed openly the 
title of Continental Congress, and spoke as with 
authority in the name of all the Colonies. We 
have seen this deliberative body coming directly 
fi'om the people and with no recognized place in 
the Constitution, acting in all things in harmony 
with public sentiment, and assuming, in 1775, ex- 
ecutive, legislative, and sometimes even judicial 
authority, organizing a government and declar- 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 105 

ing independence. This evening I shall return 
briefly to the Congress, and endeavor to complete 
our view of the elements of the civil government 
of the Revolution by a sketch of the characteris- 
tic features of the State governments. 

Congress had now accomplished one part of its 
task, and with a calmness, judgment, and wisdom 
that confirmed men in their persuasion of its capa- 
city to deal with these delicate questions and bear 
these grave responsibilities. To the world, too, 
there was an appearance of unanimity in its coun- 
sels which added materially to its authority ; for 
it still deliberated with closed doors, and, publish- 
ing its acts, passed silently over its discussions. It 
was known, however, even then, that there were 
differences of opinion among its members, though 
few out of Congress knew their nature or their 
extent. 

Shall we, at this distant day, seek to remove the 
veil and lay bare the dissensions and personal jeal- 
ousies which disturbed, although they did not 
destroy its harmony of resolve, — retarded, al- 
though they did not prevent its harmony of ac- 
tion? It seems an invidious and ungrateful task to 
tell how John Dickinson gave John Adams the cut 
direct in the streets of Philadelphia ; how, one day, 
as several members were walking together in the 
lobby. Jay took Richard Henry Lee by the button, 
and, drawing him towards Jefferson, made him 
declare he had never denied that Jay wrote the 

5* 



106 LECTURE IV. 

address to the people of England ; how Samuel 
Adams — for though chronologically it comes two 
years later, yet it belongs in spirit full as much to 
tliis as to any other period — how then Samuel 
Adams turned short upon poor Duponceau, who 
had addressed him as John Adams, and said, " I 
would have you to know, sir, that there is a great 
difference between Samuel Adams and John Ad- 
ams." Such things are sad, very sad ; and it is 
far pleasanter to think of the author of the " Farm- 
er's Letters " as grasping cordially the hand of the 
author of " Novanglus " wherever he met him, 
and the eloquent Lee as rejoicing with a brother's 
joy in the eloquence of Jay. 

But these things are history; stern, impartial, 
truth-loving history ; and it is a wilful rejecting of 
the most instiiictive of her lessons ai'bitrarily to 
blot the page which reminds us that even the 
greatest and wisest of men are not altogether ex- 
empt from the weaknesses of humanity. I would 
not dwell upon such things, for they sadden and 
mortifv me. But when I look upon the men of 
mv own day, and hear and read what is said of 
their errors and weaknesses, I find it a gentle per- 
suasive to charity to remember that weakness and 
greatness have so often dwelt side by side in the 
noblest intellects and truest hearts. 

Fortunately there was no Horace Walpole in 
our Congress to distort the picture by bestowing 
all his finest *ouches and richest tuits upon the 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 107 

worst parts of it. The little that has been pre- 
served in letters and diaries, the little that has 
crept out through avenues which, however closely 
guarded, could never be so completely closed but 
that some secrets would find their way through 
them, are sufficient for the truth of history ; and I 
gladly turn from them to the contemplation of that 
pure wisdom and exalted patriotism, in the splen- 
dor of whose rays these spots on the bright orbs 
of our political system are wellnigh lost. 

You have already seen that on the 11th of 
June, immediately after appointing the committee 
for drafting a " Declaration of Independence," 
Congress resolved " that a committee be appointed 
to prepare and digest the form of a Confedei*ation 
to be entered into between these Colonies," and 
another to " prepare a plan of treaties to be proposed 
to foreign powers." The first of these resolves 
gave us tlie Confederation ; the second I shall re- 
turn to in a future lecture.* 

As we look back upon tlie Confederation, we are 
apt to dwell too exclusively upon its errors and de- 
ficiencies ; to foro-et that we see it in the lio-ht of 
history, — in the light of the Constitution ; that 
some of its errors were such as time only could 
reveal, some of its deficiencies were such as noth- 
ing but a stern experience could induce us to sup- 

* The first movement towards a confederation had been made 
in July, 1775, by Franklin, ever foremost in the just appreciap 
tion of circumstarces. 



108 LECTCRE IT. 

ply. For to stip^>Ir them required sacrifices, and, 
iu some insiances, the sacririo^ of habits and prvjii- 
dices which the popular mind clings to with sin- 
gular tenacity. A correct estimate ot* it wtwld 
r^uire an examuiation» which we have not time 
for now, of the ideas which the publicists and 
statesmen of that day entertained concerning the 
nature and oJfice of a confederation. A glance, 
however, I must give, though it will necessarily be 
a hasty one. 

Alliances tor particular piirp<><es have been c<«n- 
mon fi\»ui an early perivsl of modem history. Du 
Mc4it ainl Rousset and De Martens have fiUed t«^ 
umes with the iecv>rvl of minute stipolatioas made 
only to be brv>ken. and perpetual friendships diat 
harvlly outlived the year of their formation. You 
ha>-e all read to satiety of £uuily compacts. ai\d 
quadruple alliances, anvl hvJy alliances. Of cvmi- 
lederatioits, too. ther>^ have been notable e:»unp]es 
in ancient aiul UKxiem times; the Amphictyiniic 
Coimcil and Ach«an League in Greece, ^miliar 
to the men of our Re\-v>Iutiv>n thrvxigh RoUin and 
MUlot and Mably : in mo«,lem Eurv^^v the Ger- 
manic s\-sten\, the United Xetherlauvis. the Hans^ 
atie League, something of cvMxfevieraoy in Ft^landv 
in Switierland much more ; all of them, when our 
Confederution was formed, stUl object? of living in- 
terest, lull of suggestions, especially full of warn- 
ings. But we must not forget that there were 
fimduaental distinctkns between Americans — 



THE STATE GO}'EIi:S\\fEXTS. 109 

eveii the Americans of that day — and the j>eople 
©f these confederacies, especially at the ancient 
contevleraoies. 

In ancient society the citizen was absorbed in the 
state. The le^cislators of antiquity treated the indi- 
viduiU as an element in that collective dignity, pow- 
er, and grandeur which was called Sjv^rta, or Ath- 
ens, or Rome. It was not from any consciousness 
of the dignity of his individutd natmv, of the digni- 
ty of humanity, tliat the citizen of the victorious 
Republic repelled insult and injury. But to indict 
stripes upon him was to insult tlie majestic city; 
to put tetters on his limbs was to bind limbs that 
ouglit alwiiA-s to be fn?e tor the service of the state. 

With Christianity came individuid rights, as the 
necessary consequence of individual ivsponsibUi- 
ties : the right of deciding and acting for self in 
civil sooietv, as a necessary consequence of the ob- 
ligation to answer for self at the bar of God. In 
the Italian Republics of the Middle Ages, the two 
ideas stood side by side ; the citizen Kxiked upon 
himself as individually merged in the state ; but 
at brief and reguhir intervals that state had to be 
made over again, and he had an equal voice, and an 
equal hand, in doing it. And thus was estab- 
Kshed the dependence of the state upon its indi- 
vidual members ; the responsibility of every citizen 
that held office to the citizens by whose votes and 
for whose protection he held it. The regular re- 
tnm of authority to the soiuve whence it came. 



110 LECTURE IV. 

tlie idea of office as a duty to ihe state and a 
trust from the individual, was the contribution of 
those briUiant republics to the cause of poHtical 
tmth. 

Yon can have no difficulty in recognizing this 
idea, for it is the idea familiar to you all as the 
sovereignty of the people. Years were still to pass, 
and a new world to be opened to it, before it ob- 
tained solemn acceptance as the corner-stone of all 
legitimate authority. But that acceptance it found 
at last in the municipal institutions of New Eng- 
land. To us it is so familiar an axiom that all our 
political reasonings start from it, all our political 
theories bring us back to it as their test. In our 
colonial history, though ever active below the sur- 
face, it did not appear so constantly above the sur- 
face. But when the Colonies threw off the author- 
ity of the King in the name of the people, and 
asked themselves and one another what and whom 
they should put in his stead, they were met from 
the beginning by the fact that the sovereign people 
was already represented in thirteen distinct indi- 
vidualities ; that each State was already an empire 
in itself. Thus — and it was a natural error — it 
was not the people that they bound together, but 
the States ; framing a confederacy of collective in- 
dividuals, with whose elements their common rep- 
resentative had no means of contact ; to whose 
opinions it might appeal, but over whose action it 
had no control. And thus, instead of commanding, 



FHE STATE GOVERNMENTS. HI 

it could only recommend ; instead of guiding, it 
could only advise. It might make the wisest 
laws, the most advantageous treaties, the most ju- 
dicious appropriations of the public resources ; but 
it could neither enforce a law, nor guard a treaty 
from infraction, nor draw out the resources of the 
country, without the direct and voluntary concur- 
rence of each individual State. " It could declare 
everything, could do nothing." 

It was not till the 15th of November, 1777, that 
the Articles of Confederation were accepted by 
Congress, and not till the 1st of March, 1781, that, 
after many alterations and amendments, they re- 
ceived tlie adhesion of Maryland, the last of all 
the States to hesitate upon the brink of Union. 
During this period Congress continued to exercise 
the supreme power as it had done in the beginning, 
governing the army, the navy, tlie finances, the 
foreign relations, by committees under the name of 
Boards ; and relying for confirmation upon the con- 
fidence of the people. From a deliberative it had 
become an executive assembly ; and when the first 
impulse of popular enthusiasm was passed, it Avas 
exposed to all the searching criticisms with which 
a free people visits the depositaries of its power 
and rewards the executors of its will. Without 
altogether losing its hold upon tlie popular mind, it 
lost much of that veneration which had been the 
chief source of its original streno-th. King Cong. 
became a common expression as early as 1777, if 



112 LECTURE IV. 

not as a term of reproach, still not altogether as a 
mark of affection. Men felt the presence of the 
enemy ; they saw the distress of the army ; but 
they heard of Congress as living luxuriously in 
comfortable quarters, wliile their soldiers and offi- 
cers were freezing and starving on a bleak hillside. 
It was accused, and not always unjustly, of pro- 
crastination and negligence ; of unnecessary delays 
of decision which led to fatal delays of action. 
The Commander-in-chief would prepare his plan 
of campaign ; the Quartermaster-General would 
prepare his estimates ; but Congress would put off 
from day to day and from week to week the con- 
current action, without which neither Washington 
nor Greene could take a step. It was accused, not 
only of withholding from Washington that full 
confidence which was essential to the efficient ex- 
ercise of his authority, but even of opening the 
door for the misrepresentations of his enemies, and 
of taking, through several of its members, an ac- 
tive part in the disgraceflil cabal for setting up a 
Gates as his rival, a half-formed Pom})ey against 
an impossible CfBsar ; the first great blot in our 
united annals, and which nothing but the more 
open treason of Arnold could have deprived of its 
historical prominence as a combination of baseness, 
cowardice, and treachery. And however gx'eat 
the embarrassments and difficulties of its situation 
may have been, history will not acquit it of many 
crave and some wilful errors. 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 113 

But many of the men who had breathed into its 
counsels the wise caution and sober courage of 1775 
and 1776 were no longer there to foster that rare 
spirit by their advice and example. As the war 
advanced, the army became tlie chief object of at- 
tention, upon whose movements men waited with 
anxious expectation, for all knew that there was 
no longer any alternative between absolute victory 
or absolute submission. And that army had found 
a leader whose character from the first inspu'ed 
confidence as well as admiration, reverence as well 
as love. Already known as the hero of Brad- 
dock's disastrous campaign, as the man who, when 
British courage had faltered and British skill was 
at fault, had saved the remnants of a noble army 
by prodigies of American courage and skill ; known, 
too, as a man who had sacrificed the enjoyments 
of a cherished home, and staked a princely fortune 
upon the issue ; he seemed to fill the popular im- 
agination by a happy mixture of the marvellous 
and the common in his history, of the grave and 
the im]:)etuous in his character. At the side of 
such a man no body of men could hold an equal 
place, for man's inherent love of unity leads him 
to concentrate his strongest affections upon single 
objects ; and when that object is a worthy one, 
when judgment approves and goes hand in hand 
with feeling, those affections become too strong to* 
bear the presence of a rival. Even the Congress 
of 1776 would have lost somewhat of its halo by 



lU LECTURE IV. 

the side of the "Washington of Trenton and Ger- 
mantown and jNIonmoutli, — the Washington who 
had braA-ed the ice of the Delaware, and hved in a 
log hut amid the snows of Valley Forge. Still 
less could it keep its hold upon the popular mind 
when reduced in number and shifting about from 
place to place ; from Philadelphia to Baltimore, to 
get out of the reach of the Tories ; fi'om Philadel- 
phia to Lancaster, to get out of the Avay of the Brit- 
ish army ; then farther on, to York ; and at last 
back again to Philadelphia when Washington had 
opened the way ; next to Princeton, threatened by 
mutineers ; and finally to Annapolis, where Wash- 
ington came once more before it to resign his 
commission, and perform in its presence what 
he fondly regarded as the last act of liis public 
life. Franklin, with the weight of seventy years 
upon him, had again crossed the ocean in 1776 to 
plead for his country at the court of France, as he 
had long pleaded for her at the court of her own 
sovereign. John Adams had followed him in 
1778 ; Jefferson had turned all his energies to- 
wards a reform in the civil legislation of his native 
Province. Others of the original members were 
also gone ; some called away to the more attrac- 
tive field of State government ; some, by private 
interests ; and some, too, to make way for new 
men. The attendance was often imperfect, some- 
times barely sufiicient for the transaction of busi- 
ness ; and its discussions not being reported, it was 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 115 

shut out from that path to public applause which 
skill in debate and popular eloquence might still 
have kept open for it. Yet there were great and 
good men in it to the last ; — still a Morris, a 
Sullivan, a Schuyler, to impart energy to its 
counsels ; a Jay and a Laurens, to sustain the 
dignity of the Presidential chair. And although- 
it failed where large bodies must always fail, in 
executive promptness, decision, and skill, it is 
none the less entitled to the grateful remembrance 
of every true American, as the guardian and pre- 
server of civil government through the perilous 
convulsions of a long and bloody Avar ; receiving 
its authority from the hands of the people in the 
midst of a revolution which threatened all the ex- 
isting forms of society with subversion, and ren- 
dering it back to the people untainted when the 
revolution was completed and new or newly mod- 
ified forms had everywhere taken the place of the 
old. Let those who would learn wisdom by exam- 
ple ponder well the history of the Congress of the 
American Revolution ; its merits and its defects ; 
its frailties and its virtues ; the much that it ac- 
complished of what it attempted, the little that it 
left undone of what large assemblies can do. 

From the first establishment of the American 
Colonies the Colonial governments were divided 
into Provincial governments, directly dependent 
upon the King ; Proprietary governments, imme- 
diately dependent upon the proprietary and medi- 



116 LECTURE IV. 

ately upon the King as the lord pai'amount ; and 
Charter governments, in Avhich certain definite 
rights and privileges were secured to the Colonj 
by letters patent from the King. Tluis in eveiy 
Colony the King was equally the original source of 
authority ; for every Colony was equally founded 
upon the principle, that the first discoverer of a 
country not occupied by a civilized or a Christian 
people discovered for the sovereign to whom he 
owed allegiance ; and thus the sovereign became 
lord of the soil, with tiill power to divide and gi'iuit 
it at will, and attach such conditions as he saw fit 
to the grant. 

But, fortunately for our founders, this enormous 
power was met by another principle peculiar to 
English law, and no less a cleai'ly settled principle. 
Every Englishman, carrying his allegiance with 
him, carried also his rights. The moment that he 
took possession of a new tract in the name of the 
crown, English law took possession of it in the 
name of the Constitution. Thus, wherever Eng- 
lishmen went, Jliujna Charta went with them. 
Every right which had been defined in England 
before they left its shores, was defined for them 
and their children. Every law which had been 
made for tlioir government in their old home re- 
tained, as far as the ditference of ciivumstances 
would permit, full control over tliem in their new 
home. No longer part and parcel of the realm of 
Great Britain, thoy were still, as before, subjects 



fHE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 117 

of the crown, bound to such duties as it could con- 
stitutionally impose, and possessed of all the rights 
and immunities "which the subject could constitu- 
tionally claim. 

And fortunately, too, these rights and immuni- 
ties were of the largest kind ; so large, indeed, that 
their natiu'al development, that development which 
fundamental principles, whether good or bad, al- 
ways receive at the hand of time, led by a logical 
necessity to that full measure of liberty which we 
ourselves enjoy. And at the same time they were 
so reasonable, so just, they entered so directly into 
the domestic life of the people while they acted 
with such a regular and constant action upon its 
public life, that they were looked upon as equally 
essential to the peace of the one and the prosperity 
of the other. 

The first of these rights was the right to partici- 
pate directly in the government ; to have a voice 
in the making of their laws, in the spending of then' 
money ; and, as a guaranty that it would be spent 
properly, the right of sa^Hing when, how, and how 
much of it they would give. 

No less important nor less Avatchfully guarded 
was the right of trial by jury ; an institution to 
which Englishmen and the descendants of Eng- 
lishmen cling so tenaciously, that they are hardly 
able to conceive of justice in any other form. And 
side by side with these the right of petition. 

Men who carried such rights with them would 



118 LECTURE IV. 

necessarily establisli a free government wherever 
they Avent ; a government which, whatever name 
they might see lit to give it, wliatever external 
form it might bear, would still be essentially free. 
The absorption of the individual by the state was 
irreconcilable with such miaranties ao;ainst the en- 
croachments of the sovereign. The vio-orous and 
healthy life of the state was secured by the con- 
stant infusion of vigor and health from every 
hearth-stone, from every workshop, from every 
field. And among our fathers the jealous Avatch- 
fulness of the individual was kept alive by the exi- 
gencies of their position ; rapid growth constantly 
calling for new provisions, and starting questions 
which carried them daily back to fundamental 
principles. 

One form, however, had acquired from early as- 
sociations a hold upon their affecfions. They had 
always been familiar with the idea of a division of 
powers. They had long been accustomed to see a 
King, and a House of Lords, and a House of Com- 
mons, acting Avith harmonious interdependence for 
the common Aveal. They Avould have found it 
difficult to conceive of good laAvs as emanating from 
an executive poAver, or a good executive poAver as 
residing in a legislative body. Still less could 
they have reconciled their conce})tions of the due 
administration of justice Avith the miion of legisla- 
tive and judicial authority. And as practical free- 
dom consisted for them in the preservation of their 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 119 

civil as well as tlieir political rights, so the forms 
of freedom consisted in the radical division of the 
three m-eat functions of government. 

Therefore in all the Colonies, in the Provincial 
and Proprietary as well as in those that were gov- 
erned by charter, the outlines of the English con- 
stitution were more or less accurately preserved.' 
There was a Governor to represent the King, a 
Council to represent the House of Lords, an elec- 
tive Assembly to represent the House of Commons. 
Local peculiarities introduced modifications. A 
royal Governor in Massachusetts was not in every 
respect upon the same footing as a royal Governor 
in Virginia. The Governor of Rhode Island, 
called from the plough, the workshop, or the count- 
ing-room to the executive chair, and going back 
to his plough, or workshop, or counting-room again, 
whenever his fellow-citizens thought that another 
man could serve them better, was a very different 
person from the needy courtiers wdio were often 
sent from the antechambers of royalty to fill their 
pockets in rich New York. But still in all mate- 
rial things the fundamental distinctions of the Eng- 
lish constitution were preserved ; the executive, 
the legislative, and the judicial functions were 
carefully kept apart. 

Hence, when the Revolution came to snap the 
bands which had so long bound the Colonies to the 
mother country, it found a people familiar with the 
functions of government, and strongly attached to 



120 LECTURE IV. 

certain forms as the best security for their hber- 
ties. The Provincial and Proprietary systems, as 
far as they depended for sanction upon the King, 
fell of themselves when the King declared the Col- 
onies out of his protection, and they accepted the 
position ; but tliis was merely a falling of the scaf- 
folding, — the foundations of the great edifice, which 
a century and a half had been consolidating, re- 
mained unshaken. The power returned to whence 
it came, — tlie people ; and the people were pre- 
pared to build vip a stronger and more harmonious 
edifice upon the original foundations. In the Char- 
ter governments the change was even less ; for the 
charters were virtually written constitutions, and 
so much in harmony with public opinion that it 
was only some twenty years ago that Rhode Isl- 
and dropped from her statute-book the charter of 
Charles the Second. 

There was, indeed, a critical moment in the pas- 
sage from the old forms to the new. >' O Mr. 
Adams ! " said one of the eager statesman's for- 
mer clients, a notorious horse-jockey, " what great 
things have you and your colleagues done for us ! 
We can never be grateful enough to you. There 
are no courts of justice now in this Province, and 
I hope there never will be another." John Ad- 
ams looked grave. It was an interpretation of his 
iconoclastic labors which had not occurred to him. 
Other men looked grave, and felt anxious too. 
They saw that the hour of pulling down was past, 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 121 

and that, if they would build up again, they must 
begin quickly. 

Massachusetts was the first to ask Congress what 
she should put in the place of the charter which 
the King and his ministers had tried to force upon 
her. It was an inconvenient question, for Congress 
was still talking about loyalty and filial love ; and 
to advise Massachusetts to set up a government 
of her own would be neither loyal nor filial. But 
it was a question that must be met. To hesitate 
would be like casting doubts on its own author- 
ity. To refuse an answer would be exposing an 
important Colony to the perils of anarchy, when 
circumstances imperiously required the concentrat- 
ed energy of organized government. She was 
advised, therefore, to go back as neai'ly as possible 
to her old charter. 

In October of the same year (1775), New 
Hampshire came to Congress with the same ques- 
tion. Meanwhile, events had been quickening 
their motion ; the whole fleet, dullest and swiftest 
alike, were within signal distance, moving fairly on 
with a wind that promised to blow, like that pro- 
pitious wind which Apollo sent the Greeks, "full 
in the middle of their sails." And accordingly 
Congress spoke out more directly than ever before, 
advising them, by its resolve of the 3d of Novem- 
ber, " to call a full and free representation of the 
people, and that the representatives, if they think 
it necessary, establish such a form of government 
6 



122 LECTURE IV. 

as, in tlieir judgment, will best produce the happi- 
ness of the people, and most effectually secure 
peace and good order in the Province during the 
continuance of the present dispute between Great 
Britain and the Colonies." 

In January the resolve was acted upon, and a 
new constitution hastily formed. South Carolina, 
Virginia, and New Jersey also gave themselves, 
through their conventions, new constitutions before 
independence was declared ; all of them bearhig 
evident marks of haste. North Carolina was busy 
early in 1776 with the same questions. All felt 
alike the necessity of a regular, effective, and le- 
gitimate government. 

In some of these constitutions grave defects 
soon became apparent. Massachusetts tired early 
of lier resuscitated charter, and, calling a conven- 
tion, formed a new constitution in 1780. South 
Carolina revised hers in 1778. New York, chiefly 
through the counsels of John Jay, was far more 
successful in her first effort. Maryland, also, went 
carefully and deliberately to the Avork. And thus, 
with more or less haste, with more or less skill, but 
all equally earnest and equally bent upon estab- 
lishing all their rights upon a solid foundation, the 
thirteen dependent Provinces prepared themselves 
to enter upon a new career of progress and devel- 
opment as independent States. 

And now, in bringing these constitutions to- 
gether for a collective view, the first cii'cumstance 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 123 

which strikes us is their explicit recognition of the 
sovereignty of the people. As the Declaration of 
Independence derived all its authority from the 
consent of the people, expressed by their accept- 
ance of the new position in which it placed them, 
so the new constitutions derived all their authority 
from the consent of the people as expressed by a 
direct vote of ratification. They accepted them, 
they chose the representatives who framed them, 
they named the officers who carried them into ex- 
ecvxtion. In all cases the decision lay with them. 
The arguments were addressed to their under- 
standings ; the appeal was made to their feelings. 
Familiarity with these things has blunted our sense 
of their magnitude. History in all her annals has 
no brighter page, rto record so ftill of promise for ev- 
ery lover of humanity, as that which tells us how, 
without discord or anarchy, these thirteen Prov- 
inces passed through a revolution, and laid anew 
the foundations of their political existence on the 
broad basis of the rights, the interest, and the hap- 
piness of all. 

Another common feature is the preservation in 
all but two — Pennsylvania and Georgia — of a 
legislature composed of two Houses, and invested 
with extensive authority, — an authority reaching 
in some even to the power of revising the consti- 
tution. Thus far we see the influence of English 
ideas and early associations. But nowhere did the 
body which took the place of the Colonial Coun- 



124 LECTURE /F. 

cils come nearer to the House of Lords than by a 
longer term of office in some instances; and in 
some instances, also, a different mode of election. 
They were still the representatives of the people, 
invested for a stated term with specific powers, 
which, when that term expired, returned again 
to the people. The idea of hereditary rights to 
make laws, like that of hereditary rights to enforce 
them, took no root in American soil. 

Another common feature was the jealousy with 
which they all looked upon the third element in 
their government, — the Governor, or, as he was 
called in some Provinces, the President. If we 
are to take this as a result of experience, it is a 
bitter satire upon the Colonial Governors whom 
they received from the King ; if as a speculative 
conclusion, it shows more circumspection than con- 
fidence, a keen perception of possible dangers rath- 
er than a just sense of the degree of power which 
is essential to the usefulness as well as to the dig;- 
nity of a chief magistrate. Everywhere his hands 
were tied by a Council, and sometimes tied so tight 
that it seems wonderful any one should have cared 
for so powerless a symbol of power. 

In their views of religious toleration, also, there 
were some general features indicative of the point 
which the struggle between the rights of conscience 
and the responsibilities of religious conviction had 
generally reached. The old laws for the keeping 
of Sunday were retained in every constitution. In 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 125 

some cases, the narrow system of religious tests re- 
appeared. In Delaware, no Unitarian was allowed 
to hold office. The test of eligibility in Massa- 
chusetts and Maryland was belief in the Christian 
religion, — the inheritors of the land planted by 
Puritans and the inheritors of the land planted by 
Catholics meeting upon a common stand-point of 
intolerance. South Carolina went ostensibly a step 
further, and declared that no man was fit for the 
discharge of civil functions who did not believe in 
a future state of rewards and punishments. Con- 
gregationalism still continued to hold the chief 
place in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Con- 
necticut ; and, like her sister sects, was still willing 
to strengthen her hold, and reserve for herself the 
rewards as well as the duties of the ministry. But 
Episcopalianism, as if anxious to revei'se the terms 
of James's adage, had shown so decided a leaning 
towards the royal cause, that her strong hold, Vir- 
ginia, fell from her, although in New York and 
New Jersey she still retained the extensive land 
grants which had been given to her in the day of 
higher hopes, as earnests of what her well-wishers 
were ready to do for the extension of her suprem- 
acy. 

In only five constitutions was education men- 
tioned ; and in only two, that of Massachusetts and 
the second constitution of New Hampshire, were 
the provisions for schools for general instruction of 
any practical value. 



126 LECTURE IV. 

The question of suffrage, important as it must 
always be, had not yet attained that degree of im- 
portance which it soon attained wlien the flood- 
gates of emigration were thrown open and a hetero- 
geneous mass of different nations poured in upon 
our shores. Distinctions had been made at an 
early period between those to whom the right was 
extended, and those from whom it was withheld. 
But here, as elsewhere, the fundamental distinction 
was a property distinction ; and where enormous 
fortunes were unknown, it was not likely to be 
great. The highest point was a freehold estate of 
$ 250 ; the lowest, a freehold of $ 50 ; and in sev- 
eral States personal property gave the same privi- 
leges as real estate. A tribute to primogeniture 
was paid in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, the 
eldest son enjoying a right to vote as the eldest son 
of a freeholder. In some Colonies voting depend- 
ed upon the payment of taxes, and every tax-payer 
was a voter. Suffrage had not yet taken its place 
as a natural right. Stronijer evidence of interest 
in the public welfare than the mere fact of resi- 
dence was still required to enable men to say to 
whom they chose to confide the trust of making 
and executing their laws. 

In only one constitution was there any mention 
of laws for the transmission of real estate. Geor- 
gia abolished entails, and provided for an equal di- 
vision of property among the children. Nowhere 
else was the question touched in the beginning ; 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 127 

and in the other States invidious distinctions, de- 
rived for the most part from EngHsh law, continued 
to hold their place on the statute-book a few years 
longer. 

It is evident from this brief sketch, that the only- 
material alteration which the Revolution made in 
the municipal aspect of the Colonies was in the 
substitution of the people for the King as the visi- 
ble source of power ; for we must still bear in mind 
that the doctrine of popular sovereignty had been 
hitherto a revolutionary doctrine, — a principle 
held in reserve for great emergencies, and never 
brought prominently forward when any other way 
of action remained open. But henceforth it be- 
came the fundamental principle, the common start- 
ing-point, the only basis upon which the builders 
could construct an edifice fit to stand in the place 
of that which they had thrown down. And thus 
every constitution was the production of men es- 
pecially chosen to make it, — everywhere the work 
of the people through the delegates of their choice. 

It was natural that men should love this work 
of their own hands. And unfortunately it was 
equally natural that, in the fervor of this love, they 
should look suspiciously upon everything which 
seemed to throw any portion of it into the shade. 
A good part of their histoiy thus far had been 
made up of disputes with the crown and the offi- 
cers of the crown ; and they had grown into a sen- 
sitive jealousy of possible encroachments, which led 



128 LECTURE IV. 

them to scrutinize closely every act of their sover- 
eign beyond the ocean. And thus when it be- 
came necessary to create another power to act for 
them all, and confide some of the functions of sover- 
eignty to a sovereign at their own doors, the ques- 
tion that they proposed to themselves was not how 
much power the common good required them to 
delegate, but how much it was possible to withhold. 
Even with that little, the sovereign was an object 
of jealousy and suspicion. They neither loved nor 
venerated him, and yet he inspired them with in- 
definite and unwelcome fears. How (iould they 
heartily love and trust King Cong., — they who 
had wasted so much unrequited aifection upon 
King George ? 

This jealousy was not long in finding open ex- 
pression. Even the Congress of 1775, strong in 
the first glow of patriotic faith fi^om which it sprang, 
had thought it necessary to explain and apologize 
to the New York Convention for its resolves against 
New York Tories. Congress called, but the States 
did not hear. The whole course of the war is 
marked by hesitations, doubtings, delays, produced 
by the consciousness that its authority was an ob- 
ject of suspicion even when its Aveakness was an 
object of contempt. In South Carolina, where 
the State authority had for a season been entirely 
overthrown, where the legislature could only come 
together when the Continental army had opened 
the way for it, the commanding general found it 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 129 

necessary to deal very tenderly with untimely sus- 
ceptibilities. 

You all know how important it is in war to 
obtain early information of the enemy's plans and 
movements. Through Colonel Laurens, General 
Greene had succeeded in securing, within the ene- 
my's lines, the services of some Americans, who, 
having been prevailed upon in an evil hour to take 
out protections from the British, were now anxious 
to make their peace with their countrymen. The 
information that they gave was important, a full 
equivalent for the stipulated reward, — pardon 
and the restoration of their estates. Laurens was 
killed. General Greene continued to avail himself 
of the sources of correspondence which Laurens 
had opened ; and, when the proper moment came, 
felt himself bound to exert all his influence with 
the legislature in order to obtain for his agents 
the pardon and restitution that had been promised 
them. But his representations were received with 
strong tokens of dissatisfaction. The war was 
nearly over, and he was no longer needed to stand 
between the State government and the enemy. 

But unfortunately he was soon compelled to re- 
turn to this delicate ground. Congress had voted 
a five per cent duty on importations ; but the con- 
sent of the States was necessary before it could be 
collected. Eleven States had agreed to it ; two 
had refused, and one of. these, I am sorry to say, 
was Rhode Island. Virginia, after giving her con- 
6* I 



130 LECTURE IV. 

sent, had withdrawn it. South Carohna, it was 
feared, was about to follow her example. Robert 
Morris, the Superintendent of Finance, who had 
counted upon this duty, ami built all his hopes 
of meeting his engagements upon it, was greatly 
embarrassed. But General Greene, with a victori- 
ous, but half-starved, half-naked, and unpaid army 
dejjending on him, felt that the question was very 
grave. Throughout all his Southern campaigns 
he had kept up a regular correspondence with the 
Governors of the States comprised in his command ; 
a serious addition to his labors, but essential for 
keeping the wants of the army and the nature of 
their own dangers constantly before them. Ear- 
nest as his representations had sometimes been, 
they had always been well received, and by no 
one more readily than by Thomas Jefferson, when 
that father of democracy filled the executive chair 
of Virginia. Rutledge, too, South Carolina's own 
Governor, had passed weeks in Greene's camp, 
taking counsel of him, and preparing, with his aid, 
the measures necessary for the reinstatement of 
civil government. 

And now, although a new Governor held the 
chair, Greene was unwilling to believe that the 
candid representations which had always been wel- 
come in the day of trial would be misinterpreted 
in the day of prosperity. His letter to Governor 
Guerard was full, earnest, and respectful. He 
spoke of the embarrassments under which Congress 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 131 

labored ; of the little ground that it gave for appre- 
hension ; and frankly avowed that he was one of 
those who thought that independence could only 
prove a blessing under Congressional influence. 
He spoke of the army, of the noble proofs whicli it 
had given of virtue and patriotism .under almost 
every species of distress and privation. It had 
done it in the full persuasion that justice would be 
rendered it in due time. And now that it was in 
the power of government to take a step towards 
providing for the fulfilment of its obligations, it was 
dangerous to drive such men to despair. Many 
other things he said, and in the same wise and 
earnest spirit. 

The Governor laid the letter before the Assem- 
bly, as he was requested to do, but added a letter 
of his own, strongly dissuading the measures which 
Greene had advised. As Greene's letter was a- 
reading, the members could scarcely restrain their 
impatience. " A Cromwell was dictating to free 
men, threatening them with a mutinied army, — 
trying to build up the power of Congress upon the 
ruin of State rights." 

But there was still a step further which this un- 
reasonable jealousy of Congress and their general 
could go, and Governor Guerard was prepared to 
take it. The enemy was gone, the State was 
free ; the Governor had once more set up his resi- 
dence in Charle&ton. But peace was not yet de- 
clared, the army was not yet disbanded, the laws 



132 LECTURE IV. 

and forms of war were still observed and still 
necessary. During the occupation of Charleston 
by the British, a British officer, Captain Kerr, had 
married an American lady ; and now Governor 
Tonyn of East Florida, having occasion to commu- 
nicate with General Greene, sent Captain Kerr to 
Charleston with a flag addressed as usage required 
to the Commander of the Southern Department. 
Governor Guerard insisted that the flag should 
have been addressed to • him as Commander-in- 
chief of the State, and, not satisfied with asserting 
it, sent the sheriff to seize the vessel which bore 
the flag, and put the whole party in prison. The 
astonished Englishman appealed to General Greene. 
General Greene made a representation of the case 
to the Governor ; Kerr was released, but the crew 
were detained in custody. 

It was a clear case, though a delicate one. Gen- 
eral Greene might justly have felt that something 
was due to him. But he plainly saw what was 
due to Congress, and he was resolved that the due 
should be paid. He was not fond of councils of 
war. AVliere fighting was to be done, he never 
called them. But this was a case manifestly with- 
in their competency ; and, calling his officers to- 
gether, he told them the story, showed them the 
letters, and asked them if in their opinion the Brit- 
ish officer had violated any of the laws of a flag. 
They unanimously answered no. Greene instantly 
took possession of the passes to the city, and or- 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 133 

dered that no flag should be admitted without per- 
mission from head-quarters. His reputation for 
thinking before he acted, and holding firmly to his 
resolutions when he had begun to act, was too 
well established to admit of any doubt as to what 
he would do now ; and reluctantly, and with very 
bad grace, the Governor released the men, order- 
ing Captain Kerr, as a salvo for his wounded dig- 
nity, to leave the city at once, and the State within 
three days. Captain Kerr again called upon Gen- 
eral Greene for protection. " The order sent you 
by tlie Governor," was the reply, "you will pay 
no attention to. When I am ready to discharge 
your flag, I will inform you. The time and man- 
ner of your leaving the State shall be made as 
agreeable as possible I am exceedingly un- 
happy at this additional instance of indelicate treat- 
ment you have met with Nothing but my 

wishes to preserve the tranquillity of the people, 
and the respect and regard I have for their peace 
and quiet, could have prevailed on me to suffer 
your flag to be treated in the manner it has 
been." 

And reporting the case to General Lmcoln, Sec- 
retary of War, with a request to him to lay it be- 
fore Congress, he says that "pi'ecedents for such 
encroachments upon United States authority shall 
not be founded upon his failure to resist them. 
Tills," he adds, " is not one of those cases where 
the right is doubtful, or public safety the object ; 



134 LECTURE IV. 

but appears to be a matter of temper, and pursued 
without regard to either." 

And thus ended the first conflict between the 
government of Soutli Carolina and the government 
of the United States. 

It would be easy to add proof to proof of the 
feeling with Avhich the ncAV State governments 
entered u^^on the possession of their authority. 
Experience had taught them the value of their 
municipal institutions, but it had not yet taught 
them the value of that central institution upon 
whose preservation they all depended. They had 
learnt the necessity of combining as States for the 
protection of their common interests ; but they had 
not learnt the equal necessity of uniting as a peo- 
ple in order to make the union of States firm, ef- 
fective, and lasting. A short but perilous road was 
still to be trod before they reached those serene 
heiolits whence Washinoton and Franklin and 
Hamilton were yet to look hopefully forth upon 
the fliture of the country they had loved and served 
so well. 

Yet the men who indulged these untimely jeal- 
ousies were the men who had displayed so much 
famiharity with practical government, and so just 
a comprehension of the principles of theoretical 
government ; men who, knowing that no govern- 
ment can perform its functions without a machin- 
ery of its own, had made their State machinery as 
perfect as they knew how to make it, but had de- 



THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 135 

liberately clogged every wheel and weakened every 
spring which could give efficiency and vigor to their 
united strength. 

And thus must it ever be with individuals and 
with States, who, accepting a principle, refuse to 
accept its consequences. For it is no less sure that 
every general law of being will sooner or later 
work itself fully out, than that all society is 
founded upon law. The law of union is eminent- 
ly a law of sacrifice. The sacrifice of something 
that you might freely do while living alone, be- 
comes an imperative condition the moment that 
you undertake to live with another. And as, in 
every State, each town, while performing some of 
the functions of government for itself, and possess- 
ing all the machinery which the performance of 
them required, looked to the State government for 
the pei'formance of other functions, and cheerfully 
submitted to the curtailment of municipal authority 
and the partial subordination which such relations 
towards the State required ; so was it only by the 
sacrifice of certain rights that the States could 
build up a central power strong enough to perform 
for them those indispensable acts of general gov- 
ernment which they could not perform for them- 
selves. 

Manifest as this truth may now appear to every 
understanding, the history of the civil government 
of the Revolution is in a great measure the history 
of a persistent and bitter struggle with it in almost 



136 THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 

all its practical applications. Step by step the 
ground was contested, — step by step the ground 
was won. Yet how many steps were still required 
to bring our fathers to the Constitution which made 
us a powerful nation ! How many more must yet 
be taken, before we reach the full consequences of 
that sublime Declaration which made us an inde- 
pendent people I 



LECTURE V. 

FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 

JN the sketches which formed the subject of my 
last two Lectures, you doubtless observed that I 
confined myself to general views and statements, 
without attempting to enter into a full study of any 
of the various classes of acts which statesmen are 
called upon to perform. This evening I propose 
to give you a fuller view of Congress in action ; 
and in action upon one of the most complex and 
difficult subjects of legislation. Resistance once 
resolved on, it became necessary to provide the 
means of rendering it effective. There were men 
enough in the country to fill up the army, there 
was money enough in the country to feed, pay, and 
clothe them ; but how were these men and that 
money to be reached? We shall see hereafter 
what was done to bring out the physical resources 
of the country, and how unwisely it was done. 
This evening I shall confine myself to a review of 
the efforts which were made earnestly and persist- 
ently, from the beginning of the war to the end of 
it, to bring out its pecuniary resources. 



138 LECTURE V. 

And here, on the threshold, let me remind you 
that, in all historical studies, you should still bear 
in mind the difference between the point of view 
fi'om which you look at events, and that from which 
they were seen by the actors themselves. We all 
act under the influence of ideas. Even those who 
speak of theories with contempt are none the less the 
unconscious disciples of some theory, none the less 
busied in working out some problems of the great 
theory of life. Much as they fancy that they dif- 
fer from the speculative man, they differ from him 
only in contenting themselves with seeing the path 
as it lies at their feet, while he strives to embrace 
it all, starting-point and end, in one comprehensive 
view. And thus in looking back upon the past we 
are irresistibly led to arrange the events of history, 
as we arrange the facts of a science, in their ap- 
propriate classes and under their respective laws. 
And thus, too, these events give us the true meas- 
ure of the intellectual and moral culture of the 
times, of the extent to which just ideas prevailed 
therein upon all the duties and functions of private 
and public life. Tried by the standard of absolute 
truth and right, grievously would they all fall short, 
and we, too, with them. Judged by the human 
standard of progressive development and gradual 
growth, — the only standard to which the man of 
the beam can venture, unrebuked, to bring the man 
of the mote, — we shall find much in them all to 
sadden us, and much also in* which we can sin- 
cerely rejoice. 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 139 

In judging, therefore, the political acts of our 
ancestors, we have a right to bring them to the 
standard of the political science of their own age, 
but we have no right to bring them to the higher 
standard of ours. Montesquieu could give them 
but an imperfect clew to the labyrinth in which 
they found themselves involved ; and yet no one 
had seen farther into the mysteries of social and 
political organization than Montesquieu. Hume 
had scattered brilliant rays on dark places, and 
started ideas which, once at work in the mind, 
could never rest till they had evolved momentous 
truths and overthrown long-standing errors. But 
no one had yet seen (Adam Smith's great work 
was just going to the press), that labor was the 
original source of every form of wealth, — that the 
farmer, the merchant, the manufacturer, were all 
equally the instruments of national prosperity, — 
or demonstrated as Smith does, that nations grow 
rich and powerful by giving as they receive, and 
that the good of one is the good of all. The world 
had not yet seen that fierce conflict between antag- 
onistic principles which she was soon to see in the 
French Revolution ; nor had political science yet 
recorded those daring experiments in remoulding 
society, those constitutions framed in closets, dis- 
cussed in clubs, accepted and overthrown with 
equal demonstrations of popular zeal, and which, 
expressing in their terrible energy the universal 
dissatisfaction with past and present, the universal 



140 LECTURE V. 

grasping at a brighter future, have met and an- 
swered so many grave questions, neither pro- 
pounded nor solved in any of the two hundred 
constitutions which Aristotle studied in order to 
prepare himself for the composition of his " Poli- 
tics." The world had not yet seen a powerful 
nation tottering on the brink of anai'chy, with all 
the elements of prosperity in her bosom, — nor a 
bankrupt state sustaining a war that demanded an- 
nual millions, and growing daily in wealth and 
strength, — nor the economical phenomena which 
followed the reopening of Continental commerce 
in 1814, — nor the still more startling phenomena 
which a few years later attended England's return 
to specie-payments and a specie-currenc}^ — nor 
statesmen seating themselves gravely before the 
map of Europe to distribute its kingdoms and 
peoples according to their own conceptions of the 
balance of power, but finding all the results of 
their combined wisdom set at nought by the inex- 
orable development of the fundamental principle 
which they had refused to recognize. 

But we have seen these things, and, having seen 
them, unconsciously fipply the knowledge derived 
from them to events to which Ave have no right to 
apply it. We condemn errors which w^e should 
never have detected without the aid of a light 
wdiich was hidden from our fathers, and Avill still 
be dwelling upon shortcomings which nothing 
could have avoided but a general diffusion of that 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 141 

wisdom which Pro%adence never vouchsafes except 
as a gift to a few exalted minds. Every school- 
boy has his text-book of political economy now ; but 
many can remember when these books first made 
their appearance in schools ; and so late as 1820 
the Professor of History in English Cambridge 
publicly lamented that there was no work upon 
this vital subject which he could give to his classes. 

When, therefore, our fathers found themselves 
face to face with the complex questions of finance, 
they naturally fell back upon the experience and 
devices of their past history ; they did as in such 
emergencies men always do, — they tried to 
meet the present difficulty without weighing ma- 
turely the fature difficulty. The present was at 
the door, palpable, stern, urgent, relentless ; and 
as they looked at it, they could see nothing beyond 
half so full of perplexity and danger. They hoped, 
as in the face of all history and all experience men 
will ever hope, that out of those depths which 
their feeble eyes were unable to penetrate, some- 
thing might yet arise in their hour of need to avert 
the peril and snatch them from the precipice. 
Their past history had its lessons of encourage- 
ment, some thought, and, some thought, of warn- 
ing. They seized the example, but the admoni- 
tion passed unheeded. 

Short as the chronological record of American 
history then was, that exchange of the products of 
labor which so speedily grows up into commerce 



142 LECTURE V. 

had already passed through all its phases, from di- 
rect barter to bank-notes and bills of exchange. 
Men gave what they wanted less to get what they 
wanted more; the products of industry without 
doors for the products of industry within doors ; 
and it was only when they wished to add to their 
stock of luxuries or conveniences from a distance 
that they felt the want of money. Prices natural- 
ly found theu' own level, — were what, when left 
to themselves they always are, the natural expres- 
sion of the relations between demand and supply. 
Tobacco stood the Virginian instead of money long 
after money had become abundant, procuring him 
corn, meat, raiment. More than once, too, it pro- 
cured him something still better. In the very 
same year in which the Pilgrims landed at Pljon- 
outh, history tells us, ninety maidens of " virtuous 
education and demeanor " landed in Virginia ; the 
next year brought sixty more ; and, provident in- 
dustry reaping its own reward, he whose busy 
hands had raised the largest crop of tobacco was 
enabled to make the first choice of a wife. And 
it must have been an edifying and pleasant specta- 
cle to see each stalwart Virginian pressing eagei'ly 
on towards the landing, with his bundle of tobacco 
on his back, and walking deliberately home again 
with an affectionate wife under liis arm. 

But already there was a pernicious principle at 
work, — protested against by experience wherever 
tried, and still repeatedly tried anew, — the as- 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 143 

sumption by government of the power to regulate 
the prices of goods. The first instance carries us 
back to 1618, and thinking men still believed it 
possible in 1777. The right to regulate the prices 
of labor was its natural corollary, bringing with it 
the power of creating legal tenders, and the vari- 
ous representatives of value, without any corre- 
spondent measvu'es for creating the value itself, or, 
in simpler words, paper-money without capital. 
And thus, logically as well as historically, we reach 
the first issue of paper-money in 1690, that year 
so memorable as the year of the first Congress. 

New England, encoiuraged by a successful expe- 
dition against Port Royal, made an attempt upon 
Quebec. Confident of success, she sent forth her 
little army without providing the means of paying 
it. The soldiers came back som'ed by disaster and 
fatigue, and, not yet up to the standard of 1776, 
were upon the point of mutinying for their pay. 
To escape the immediate danger, Massachusetts 
bethought her of bills of credit. They were is- 
sued, accepted, and redeemed, although the first 
holders suffered great losses, and the last holders, 
or the speculators, were the only ones that found 
them faithftil pledges. The flood-gates once 
opened, the water poured in amain. Every press- 
ing emergency afforded a pretext for a new issue. 
Other Colonies followed the seductive example. 
Paper was soon issued to make money plenty. 
Men's minds became familiar with the idea, as 



144 LECTURE V. 

they saw the convenient substitute passing freely 
from hand to hand. Accepted at market, accept- 
ed at the retail store, accepted in the counting- 
room, accepted for taxes, everywhere a legal ten- 
der, it seemed adequate to all the demands of 
domestic trade. But erelong came imdue fluctua- 
tions of prices, depreciations, failures, — all the 
well-known indications of an unsound currency. 
England interposed to protect her own merchants, 
to whom American paper-money was utterly worth- 
less ; and Parliament stripped it of its value as a 
legal tender. Men's minds were divided. They 
had never before been called upon to discuss such 
questions upon such a scale or in such a form. 
They were at a loss for the principle, still envel- 
oped in the multitude and variety of conflicting 
theories and obstinate facts. 

One fact, however, was clearly established, — 
that a government could, in great need, make pa- 
per fulfil, for a while, the ofiice of money ; and if 
a regular government, why not also a revolution- 
ary government, sustained and accepted by the 
people ? Here, then, begins the history of Conti- 
nental money, — the principal chapter in the finan- 
cial history of the Revolution, — leading us, like 
all such histories, over ground thick-strown with 
unheeded admonitions and neglected warnings, 
through a round of constantly recurring phenome- 
na, varied only here and there by modifications in 
the circumstances under which they appear. 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 145 

It is much to bo rojiretted that we luive no rec- 
oxA of the discussions through which Cono-ress 
reached the resolves of June 22, 1775 : '' Tluit a 
smn not exceeding two niilhons of Spanish nulled 
dollars be emitted by the Congress in bills of credit 
tor the defence of America. That the twelve con- 
federated Colonies " (Georgia, it will be remem- 
bered, had not yet sent delegates) " bo pledged for 
the redemption of the bills of credit now to be 
emitted." We do not know positively that there 
was any discussion. If there was, it is not difHcult 
to conceive how some of the reasoning ran, — how 
each delegate had arguments and examples from 
his own C\)lony ; how contidently Pennsyhanians 
would speak of the security which they had given 
to their paper ; how contidently Virginians would 
assert that even the greatest straits might be passed 
without having recourse to so dangerous a medi- 
um ; how all the facts in the history of paper- 
money would be brought forward to prove both 
sides of the question, but how the underlying prin- 
ciple, subtile, aiid impalpable, might still elude 
them all, as it long still contiiuied to elude wise 
statesmen and thoughtful economists; how, at last, 
some impatient spirit, breaking through the un- 
timely delay, sternly asked them what else they 
proposed to do. By what alchemy would they 
create gold aiul silver? By what magic would 
they fill the coffers which their non-exportation 
resolutions had kept empty, or bring in the sup- 



146 LECTURE V. 

plies which their non-importation resolutions had 
cut off? What arguments of their devisino; would 
induce a people in arms against taxation to sub- 
mit to tenfold heavier taxes than those which they 
had indignantly repelled ? Necessity, inexora- 
ble necessity, was now their lawgiver; they had 
adopted an army, they must support it ; they had 
voted to pay their officers, they must secure the 
means of giving their vote effect ; arms, ammuni- 
tion, camp-equipage, everything was to be provid- 
ed for. The people were full of ai'dor, glowing 
with fiery zeal ; your promise to pay will be re- 
ceived like payment ; your commands will be in- 
stantly obeyed. Every hour's delay imperils the 
sacred cause, chills the holy enthusiasm ; action, 
prompt, energetic, resolute action, is what the crisis 
demands. Men must see that we are in earnest ; 
the enemy must see it; nothing else will bring 
them to terms ; nothing else will give us a lasting 
peace ; and in such a peace how easily, how cheer- 
fully, shall we all unite in paying the debt by 
which so inestimable a blessing was won ! 

It would have been difficult to deny the force 
of such an appeal. There were doubtless men 
in Congress who believed firmly in the virtue of 
the people, — who thought that after the proof 
which the people had given of their readiness to 
sacrifice the interests of the present moment to the 
interests of a day and a posterity that they might 
not live to see, it would be worse than scepticism 



FINA^^CES OF THE REVOLUTION. 147 

to call it in question. But even they niiglit hesi- 
tate about the form of the sacrifice they called for, 
for they knew how often the -world is governed by 
names, and that men's minds might revolt at the 
idea of a formal tax, although they would submit 
to pay it fifty-fold under the name of depreciation. 
Even at this day, with all our additional light, — 
the combined light of science and of experience, — 
it is difficult to see what else they could have done 
without strengthening dangerously the hands of 
their domestic enemies. Nor let this be taken as 
a proof that they engaged rashly in an unequal 
contest, even though it was necessarily in part a 
war of paper against gold. They have been* ac- 
cused of this by their fi'iends as well as by their 
enemies ; they have been accused of sacrificing a 
positive good to an uncertain hope, — of suffering 
their passions to hurry them into a war for which 
they had made no adequate preparation, and had 
not the means of making any ; that they wilfully, 
ahnost wantonly, incuri'ed the fearful responsibility 
of staking the lives and fortunes of those who were 
looking to them for guidance upon the chances of a 
single cast. But the accusation is unjust. As far 
as human foresight could reach, they had calculat- 
ed these chances carefully. They knew the tenure 
by which they held their authority, and that, if 
they ran counter to the popular will, the people 
would fall fi.-om them, — that, if they should fail in 
making their position good, they would be the first, 



148 LECTURE V. 

almost the only victims, — that, then as ever, " the 
thunderbolts on highest mountains lifrht." Charles 
Carroll added " of Carrollton " to his name, so 
that, if the Declaration he was setting it to should 
bring forfeiture and confiscation, there might be no 
mistake about the victim. Nor was it without a 
touch of sober earnestness that Harrison, bulky 
and fat, said to the lean and shadowy Gerry, as he 
laid down his pen, — " When hanging-time comes, 
I shall have the advantage of you. I shall be dead 
in a second, while you will be kicking in the air 
half an hour after I am gone." But they knew 
also, that, if there are dangers which we do not 
perceive till we come full upon them, there are 
likewise helps which we do not see till we find our- 
selves face to face with them, — and that in the 
life of nations, as in the life of individuals, there 
are moments when all that the wisest and most 
conscientious can do is to see that everything is in 
its place, every man at his post, and resolutely bide 
the shock. 

While this subject was pressing upon Congress, 
it was occupying no less seriously leading minds in 
the different Colonies. All felt that the success of 
the experiment must chiefly depend upon the de- 
gree of security that could be given to the bills. 
But how to reach that necessary degree was a per- 
plexing question. Three ways were suggested in 
the New York Convention : that Congress should 
fix upon a sum, assign each Colony its proportion, 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 149 

and the issue be made by the Colony upon its own 
responsibility ; or that the United Colonies should 
make the issue, each Colony pledging itself to re- 
deem the part that fell to it ; or, lastly, that, Con- 
gress issuing the sum, and each Colony assuming 
its proportionate responsibility, the Colonies should 
still be bound as a whole to make up for the fail- 
ure of any individual Colony to redeem its share. 
The latter was proposed by the Convention as 
oflfering greater chances of security, and tending 
at the same time to strenothen the bond of union. 
It was in nearly this form, also, that it came from 
Congress. 

No time was now lost in carrying the resolution 
into effect. The next day, Tuesday, June 23, the 
number, denomination, and form of the bills were 
decided in a Committee of the Whole. It was 
resolved to make bills of eight denominations, from 
one to eight, and issue forty-nine thousand of each, 
completing the two millions by eleven thousand 
eight hundred of twenty dollars each. The form 
of the bill was to be, — 



Continental Currency. 
No. Dollars. 
This hill entitles the hearer to receive 



Spanish milled dollars or the value thereof in gold 
or silver^ according to the resolutions of the Con- 
gress held at Philadelphia on the lOifA day of May^ 
A. D. 1775. 



150 LECTURE V. 

In the same sitting a committee of five was 
appointed " to get proper plates engraved, to pro- 
vide paper, and to agree with printers to print the 
above bills." Both Franklin and John Adams 
were on this committee. 

Had they lived in 1862 instead of 1775, how 
would their doors have been beset by engravers and 
paper-dealers and printers ! What baskets of let- 
ters would have been poured upon their tables ! 
How would they have dreaded the sound of the 
knocker or the cry of the postman ! But, alas ! 
paper was so far from abundant that generals were 
often reduced to hard straits for enough of it to 
write their reports and despatches on ; and that 
Congressmen were not much better off will be 
believed when we find John Adams sending his 
wife a sheet or two at a time under the same en- 
velope with his own letters. Printers there were, 
as many, perhaps, as the business required, but not 
enough for the eager contention which the an- 
nouncement of government work to be done ex- 
cites among us in these days. And of engravers 
there were but four between Maine and Georgia. 
Of these four, one was Paul Revere of the mid- 
night ride,* the Boston boy of Huguenot blood, 
whose self-taught graver had celebrated the repeal 

* A name sure, henceforth, of its true place in our liistory ; foi, 
thanks to Longfellow, it has taken a firm place in our poetry. 
Would that others' names equally deserving might be equally 
fortunate. 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 151 

of the Stamp Act, condemned to perpetual derision 
the rescinders of 1768, and told the story of the 
Boston Massacre, — who, when the first grand 
jury under the new organization was drawn, had 
met the judge with, " I refuse to sarwe," — a sci- 
entific mechanic, — a leader at the Tea-party, — a 
soldier of the old war, — prepared to serve in this 
war, too, with sword, or graver, or science, — 
fitting carriages, at Washington's command, to the 
cannon from which tlie retreating English had 
knocked off the trunnions, learning how to make 
powder at the command of the Provincial Con- 
gress, and setting up the first powder-mill ever 
built in Massachusetts. 

No mere engraver's task for him, this engravmg 
the first bill-plates of Continental Currency ! How 
must lie have warmed over the design ! how 
carefully must he have chosen his copper ! how 
buoyantly must he have plied his graver, harassed 
by no doubts, disturbed by no misgivings of the 
double mission which those little plates were to 
perform, — the good one first, thank God ! but ah ! 
how fatal a one afterward ! but resolved and hope- 
ful as % that April night when he spurred his 
horse fi'om cottage to hamlet, rousing the sleepers 
with the cry, long unheard in the sweet valleys of 
New England, " Up ! up ! the enemy is coming !" 

The paper of these bills was thick, so thick that 
the enemy called it the pasteboard money of the 
rebels. Plate, paper, and printing, all had little 



152 LECTURE V. 

in common witli the elaborate finish and delicate 
texture of a modern bank-note. To sio-n them 
was too hard a tax upon Congressmen ah'eady 
taxed to the full measiu'e of their working-time by 
committees and protracted daily sessions ; and 
therefore a committee of twenty-eight gentlemen 
not in Congress was employed to sign and number 
them, receiving in compensation one dollar and a 
third for every thousand bills. 

Meanwhile loud calls for money were daily 
reaching the doors of Congress. Everywhere 
money was wanted, — money to buy guns, money 
to buy powder, money to buy provisions, money to 
send officers to their posts, money to march troops 
to their stations, money to speed messengers to and 
fro, money for the wants of to-day, money to pay 
for what had already been done, and still more 
money to insure the right doing of what was yet 
to do : Washington wanted it ; Lee wanted it ; 
Schuyler wanted it ; from north to south, from 
sea-board to inland, came one deep, monotonous, 
menacing cry, — " Money, or our hands are pow- 
erless ! " 

How long would these two millions stand such 
a drain ? Spent before they were received, hard- 
ly touching the Treasury-chest as a starting-place 
before they flew on "the wings of all the winds" to 
gladden thousands of expectant hearts with a brief 
respite from one of their many cares. Relief there 
^rtainly was; neither long, indeed, nor lasting. 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 153 

but still relief. Good Whigs received the bills, 
as they did everything that came from Congress, 
with unquestioning confidence. Tories turned 
from them in derision, and refused to give their 
goods for them. Whereupon Congress took the 
matter in hand, and told them that they must. 
It was soon seen that another million would be 
wanted, and in July a second issue was resolved 
on. All-devouring war had soon swallowed this 
also. Three more millions were ordered in No- 
vember. But the war, men said, w^as to end soon, 
— by June, '76, at the latest. All expenditures 
were calculated upon this supposition ; and wealth 
flowing in under the auspices of a just and equa- 
ble accommodation with their reconciled mother, 
these millions which had served them so well in 
the hour of need would soon be repaid by a happy 
and grateful people from an abundant ti*easury. 

But early in 1776 reports came of English ne- 
gotiations for foreign mercenaries to help put dow^n 
the rebellion, — reports which soon took the shape 
of positive information. It was evident that no 
immediate end of the war was to be looked for 
now ; already, too, independence was looming up 
on the turbid horizon ; already the current was 
bearing them onward, deep, swift, irresistible ; and 
thus seizing still more eagerly upon the future, 
they poured out other four millions in February, 
five millions in May, five millions in July. The 
Confederacy was not yet formed ; the Declaration 
7* 



^54 LECTURE V. 

of Independence had nothing yet to authenticate 
it but the signatui'es of John Hancock and Charles 
Thompson ; and the republic that was to be was 
already solemnly pledged to the payment of twen- 
ty millions of dollars. 

Thus far men's faith had not faltered. They 
saw the necessity and accepted it, giving their 
goods and then' labor unhesitatingly for a slip of 
paper which derived all its value from the resolves 
of a body of men who might, upon a reverse, be 
thrown down as rapidly as they had been set up. 
And then whom were they to look to for indemni- 
fication ? But now began a sensible depreciation, 
— slight, indeed, at first, but ominous. Congress 
took the alarm and resolved upon a loan, — re- 
solved to borrow directly what it had hitherto 
borrowed indirectly, the goods and the labor of 
its constituents. Accordingly, on the 3d of Octo- 
ber, a resolve was passed for raising five millions 
of dollars at four per cent ; and in order to make 
it convenient to lenders, loan-offices were estab- 
lished in every Colony, with a commissioner for 
each. 

Money came in slowly, but ran out so fast that, 
in November, Congress ordered weekly returns 
from the Treasury, not of sums on hand, but of 
what parts of the last emission remained unex- 
pended. The campaign of 1777 was at hand; 
now the campaign of 177C would end was uncer- 
tain. The same impenetrable veil that as yet hid 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 155 

Trenton and Princeton fi'om all eyes concealed 
also the disasters of Fort Washington and the Jer- 
seys. Men still looked hopefully to the lower 
hne of the Hudson. It was resolved, therefore, 
to make an immediate effort to supply the Treas- 
ury by a lottery to be drawn at Philadelphia. 

A lottery, — does not the word carry you back, 
a great many years back, to other times and other 
manners ? The Articles of War were now on the 
table of Congress for revision ; and in the second 
and thu'd of those articles, officers and soldiers had 
been earnestly recommended to attend divine ser- 
vice diligently, and to refrain, under gi'ave penal- 
ties, from profane cursing or swearing. And here 
legislators deliberately set themselves to raise 
money by means which we have deliberately con- 
demned as gambling. But years were yet to pass 
before statesmen, or the people rather, were brought 
to feel that the lottery-office and the gaming-table 
stand side by side on the same broad highway. 

No such thoughts troubled the minds of our fore- 
fathers, well stored as those minds were with hu- 
man and divine lore ; but, going to work without 
a scruple, they prepared an elaborate scheme, and 
fixed the 1st of March for the day of di-awing, — 
"or sooner, if sooner full." It was not full, how- 
ever, nor was it ftill when the subject next came 
up. Tickets were sold ; committees sat ; Congress 
returned to the subject from time to time ; but 
what with the incipient depreciation of the bills of 



156 LECTURE V. 

credit, the rising prices of goods and provisions, 
and the incessant calls upon every purse for public 
and private purposes, the lottery failed to commend 
itself either to speculators or to the bulk of the peo- 
ple. Some good Whigs bought tickets firom prin- 
ciple, and, like many of the good Whigs who took 
the bills of credit for the same reason, lost their 
money. 

In the same November, the Treasury was di- 
rected to make preparations for a new issue ; and 
in order to meet the wants of the retail trade, it 
was also resolved to issue five hundred thousand 
dollars in bills of two thirds, one tliird, one sixth, 
and one ninth of a dollar. Evident as it ought 
now to have been that nothing but taxation could 
save pubHc credit, jnen could not bend their minds 
to the necessity. " Do you think, gentlemen," said 
a member of Congi'ess, " that I will consent to load 
my constituents with taxes, when we can send to 
our printer and get a wagon-load of money, one 
quire of which will pay for the whole ? " It was 
so easy a way of making money, that men seemed 
to be getting into the humor of it. 

The campaign of 1777, like the campaign of 
1776, M'as fought upon paper-money "n-ithout any 
material depreciation. The bills could never be 
signed as fast as they were called for. But this 
could not last. Tlie public mind was growing 
anxious. Extensive interests, in some cases whole 
fortunes, were becoming involved in the question 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 157 

of ultimate payment. The alarm gained upon 
Congress. Burgoyne, indeed, was conquered ; but 
a more powerful, a more insidious enemy, one to 
whom Congress itself had opened the gate, was 
already within the Avorks and fast advancing to- 
wards the heart of the citadel. The depreciation 
had reached four for one, and there was but one 
way to prevent it from going lower. The delib- 
erations were long and anxious. Thus far the 
public faith had supported the war. But, it was 
said, the quantity of the money for which this faith 
stood pledged already exceeded the demands of 
commerce, and hence its value was proportionably 
reduced. Add to this the arts of open and secret 
enemies, the avidity of professed fi'iends, and the 
scai'city of foreign commodities, and it seemed easy 
to account for the depreciation. " The conse- 
quences were equally obvious and alarming," — 
" depravity of morals, decay of public virtue, a 
precarious supply for the war, debasement of the 
public faith, injustice to individuals, and the de- 
struction of the safety, honor, and independence 
of the United States." But " a reasonable and ef- 
fectual remedy" was still within reach; and there- 
fore, " with mature deliberation and the most ear- 
nest solicitude," Congress recommended the rais- 
ing by taxes on the different States, in proportion 
to their population, five millions of dollars in quar- 
terly payments, for the service of 1778. 

But having explained, justified, and recommend- 



158 LECTURE V. 

ed, its power ceased. Like the Confederation, it 
had no right of coercion, no machinery of its own 
for acting upon the States. And, unhappily, the 
States, pressed by their individual wants, feeling 
keenly their individual sacrifices and dangers, failed 
to see that the nearest road to relief lay through 
the odious portal of taxation. Had the mysterious 
words that Dante read on the gates of hell been 
written on it, they could not have shrunk from 
it with a more instinctive feeling : — 

" Lasciate ogni spcranza voi ch' entrate." 
" All hope abandon^ ye who enter in ! " 

Some States paid, some did not pay. The sums 
that came in were wholly insufficient to relieve 
the actual pressure ; and that pressure, unrelieved, 
grew daily more severe. Congress had tried the 
regulating of prices, — it had. tried loans, — it had 
tried a lottery ; and now it was forced back again 
to its earliest and most dangerous expedient, paper- 
money. New floods poured forth, and the parched 
earth drank them greedily up. One may almost 
fancy, as he looks at the tables, that he sees the 
shadowy form of a sickly Credit tottering feebly 
forth to catch a gleam of sunsliine, a breath of pure 
air, while myriads of little sprites, each bearing in 
his hand an emblazoned scroll with " Deprecia- 
tion " written upon it m big yellow letters, dance 
merrily around him, thrusting the bitter record in 
liis face, whichev ?r way he turns, with gibes and 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 159 

taunts and demoniac laughter. But his course 
was almost ended ; the grave was nigh, an unhon- 
ored grave ; and as eager hands heaped the earth 
upon his faded form, a stern voice bade men re- 
member that they who strayed from the path as he 
had done, must sooner or later find a grave like his. 
It was not without a desperate struggle that 
Congress saw the rapid decline and shameful death 
of its currency. The ground was fought manfully, 
foot by foot, inch by inch. The idea that money 
derived its value from acts of government seemed 
to have taken deep hold of men's minds, and theu' 
policy was in perfect harmony with their belief. 
In January, 1776, it had been solemnly resolved 
that everybody who refused to accept the Conti- 
nental bills, or did anything to obstruct the circu- 
lation of them, should, upon duo conviction, " be 
deemed, published, and treated as an enemy of his 
country, and be precluded from all trade or in- 
tercourse with the inhabitants of these Colonies." 
And to enforce it, there were Committees of In- 
spection, whose power seldom lay idle in their 
hands, whose eyes were never sealed in slumber-. 
In this work, which seemed good in their eyes, the 
State Assemblies, and Conventions, and Commit- 
tees of Safety, joined heart and hand with Con- 
gress. Tender-laws were tried, and the relentless 
hunt of creditor after debtor became a flight of the 
recusant creditor from the debtor eager to wipe 
out his responsibility for gold or silver with a ream 



160 LECTURE V. 

or two of paper. Limitation of prices was tried, 
and produced its natural results, — discontent, in- 
sufficient supplies, heavy losses. Threatening re- 
solves were renewed, and fell powerless. It was 
hoped that some i-elief might come fi'om the sales 
of confiscated property ; but property changed 
hands, and the Treasury was none the better off; 
just as in France, a few years later, the whole 
landed property of the kingdom changed hands, 
and left the government assignats what it found 
them, — bits of waste paper. 

Meanwhile speculation ran riot. Every form of 
wastefulness and extravagance prevailed in town 
and country ; nowhere more than at Philadelphia, 
under the very eyes of Congress ; luxury of dress, 
luxiuy of equipage, luxury of the table. We are 
told of one entertainment at which eight hundred 
pounds were spent in pastry. As I read the pri- 
vate letters of those days, I sometimes feel as a 
man might feel if permitted to look down upon a 
foundering ship whose crew were preparing for 
death by breaking open the steward's room and 
drinkino; themselves into madness. 

An earnest appeal was made to the States. The 
sober eloquence and profound statesmanship of 
John Jay were employed to bring the subject be- 
fore the country in its tnie light and manifold 
bearings ; the state of the Treasury, the results of 
loans and of taxes, and the nature and amount of 
the obligations incurred. The natural value and 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 161 

■wealth of the country were held up to view as the 
foundations on which Congress had undertaken to 
construct a system of public finances, beginning 
with bills of credit, because there was no nation 
they could have borrowed of, coming next to loans, 
and thus "unavoidably creating a public debt; a 
debt of 1159,948,880,' in emissions; $7,545,196|^, 
in money borrowed before the 1st of March, 1778, 
with the interest payable in France ; $26,188,909, 
money borrowed since the 1st of March, 1778, 
with interest due in America; about $4,000,000, 
of money due abroad." The taxes had brought 
in only 13,027,560 ; so that all the money 
supplied to Congress by the people was but 
$36,761,665||. 

" Judge, then, of the necessity of emissions, and 
learn from whom and from whence that neces- 
sity arose. We are also to inform you that on 
Wednesday, the first day of September instant, we 
resolved that we would on no account whatever 
emit more bills of credit than to make the whole 
amount of such bills two hundred million dol 
lars ; and as the sum emitted and in circulation 
amounted to $ 159,948,880, and the sum of 
$40,051,120 remained to complete the two hun- 
dred million above mentioned, we, on the third 
day of September instant, further resolved that 
we would emit such part only of the said sum as 
should be absolutely necessary for public exigen- 
cies before adequate supplies could otherwise be 



162 LECTURE V. 

Obtained, relying for sucli supplies on the exertions 
of the several States." 

Coming to the depreciation, he reduces the 
causes to three kinds : natural, or artificial, or both. 
The natural cause was the excess of the supply 
over the demands of commerce ; the artificial cause 
was a distrust of the ability or inclination of the 
United States to redeem their bills ; and assuming 
that both causes have combined in producing the 
depreciation of the Continental money, he proceeds 
to prove that there can be no doubt of the ability 
of the United States to pay their debt, and none of 
their inclination. Under the head of inclmatiori 
he divides his argument into three parts : — 

First, Whether, and in what manner, the faith 
of the United States has been pledged for the re- 
demption of their bills. 

Second, Whether they have put themselves in a 
political capacity to redeem them. 

Third, Whether, admitting the two former pro- 
positions, there is any reason to apprehend a wan- 
ton violation of the public faith. The idea that 
Congress can destroy the money, because Congress 
made it, is treated with scorn. 

" A bankrupt, faithless republic would be a 

novelty in the political world The pride 

of America revolts from the idea ; her citizens 
know for what purposes these emissions were made, 
and have repeatedly plighted their faith for the re- 
demption of them ; they are to be found in every 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 163 

man's possession, and every man is interested in 
their being redeemed Provide for continu- 
ing your armies in the field till victory and peace 
shall lead them home, and avoid the reproach of 
permitting the currency to depreciate in your 
hands, when by yielding a part to taxes and loans, 
the whole might have been appreciated and pre- 
served. Humanity as well as justice makes this 
demand upon you ; the complaints of ruined wid- 
ows and the cries of fatherless children, whose 
whole support has been placed in your hands and 
melted away, have doubtless reached you ; take 
care that they ascend no higher! . . . Determine 
to finish the contest as you began it, honestly and 
gloriously. Let it never be said that America had 
no sooner become independent than she became 
insolvent." 

But it was not only the Continental money that 
was blocking up the channels through which a 
sound currency would have carried vigor and 
health. The States had their debts and their pa- 
per-money too, — wheel within wheel of compli- 
cated, desperate insolvency. The two hundred 
millions had been issued and spent. There was 
no money to send to Washington for his army, and 
he was compelled for a while to support them by 
seizing the articles he needed, and giving certifi- 
cates in return. The States were called upon for 
specific supplies, beef, pork, and flour, — a method 
so expensive, irregular, and partial, that it was 



164 LECTURE V. 

soon abandoned. One chance remained: to call 
in the old money by taxes, and bnrn it as soon as 
it was in ; then to issnc a new paper, — one of the 
new for CA^ery twenty of the old ; and when the 
whole of the old was cancelled, to issue only ten 
millions of the new, — loin- millions of it subject to 
the order of Cono;ress, and the remaining six to be 
divided among the States: the whole redeemable 
in specie within six years, and bearing till then an 
interest of five per cent, payable in specie aimu- 
ally, or on redemption, at the option of the holder. 
By this skiliid change of base it was hoped that a 
bold front could still be ]MVsented to the enemy, 
and the field, which had been so long and so obsti- 
nately contested, be finally won. 

But the day of expedients was past. The zeal 
which had blazed forth with such enei'gy at the 
beginning of the war was fast sinking to a fitful, 
smouldering flame. Individual interests were again 
taking the precedence of general interests. The 
moral sense of the people had contracted a deadly 
taint from daily contact with corruption.. The 
spirit of gambling, confined in the beginning and 
lost to the eye, like Le Sage's Devil, had swollen 
to its full ])roportions, and, in the garb of sj)ecula- 
tion, was luidennining the Ibundations of society. 
Rogues were grt)wing rich ; the honest men, who 
were not already })oor, Avere daily growing poor. 
The laws that had been made in the view of prop- 
ping the currency, had served only to countenance 



FINANCES OF THE llEVOIAJTION. IGo 

unscrupulous men in paying their delfts at a dis- 
count ruinous to the creditor. The laAvs against 
forestallers and engrossers, who, it was currently 
beUeved, were leagued against botli army and 
country, were powerless, as such laws always arc. 
Even Washington wished for a gallows as high as 
Haman's to hang tliem on ; but the army was kept 
starving none the less. 

The seasons themselves — God's visible agents 
— seemed to combine against our cause. The 
years 1779 and 1780 were years of smrdl crops. 
The winter of 1780 was severe far beyond the 
common severity even of a northern winter. Pro- 
visions were scarce, suffering universal. Farmers, 
as if forgetting their dependence on rain and sun- 
shine, had planted less than usual, — some from 
disaffection, some because they were irritated at 
having to give up their corn and cattle for worth- 
less bills, and certificates which might prove equal- 
ly wortliless. Some, who were within reach of 
the enemy, preferred to sell to them, for they paid 
in silver and gold. Tliere were riots in Pliiladel- 
phia, and tliey were put down at the point of the 
sword. There was mutiny in the army, and this, 
too, was put down by the strong hand, — though 
the fearful sufferings which had caused it almost 
justified it in the eye of sober reason. 

It is easy to see why farmers should have been 
loath to raise more tlian tln^y needed for their own 
use, and wliy merchants sliould have been unwill- 



IGG LECTURE V. 

ing to lay in stores wliicli tlioy might be compelled 
to sell at prices so truly nominal that the money 
which they received would often sink to half they 
had taken it for before they were able to pass it. 
But it is not so easy to see why this wretched sub- 
stitute for values should have circulated so freely 
to the very last. Even at two hundred for one, 
with the knowledge that the next twenty-four 
hours might make that two hundred two hundred 
and fifty, or even more, without the slightest hope 
that it Avould ever be redeemed at its nominal 
value, it would still buy everything that was to be 
bought, — provisions, goods, houses, lands, even 
hard money itself. Down to its last gasp there 
were speculations afoot to take advantage of the 
differences in the degree of its worthlessness at dif- 
ferent places, and buy it up in one place to sell it 
at another, — to buy it in Philadelphia at two hun- 
dred and twenty-five for one, and sell it in Boston 
at seventy-five for one. It Avas possible, if the ball 
passed quickly from hand to hand, that some might 
gain ; it was very manifest that some must lose ; 
and here outcrops that pernicious doctrine, that 
true, life-giving, health-diffusing commerce consists 
in stripping one to clothe another. 

And thus Ave reach the memorable year 1781, 
the great, decisive year of the Avar. While Greene 
was fighting CoruAvallis and RaAvdon, and Wash- 
ington Avas Avatching eagerly for an opportunity to 
strike at Clinton, Congress Avas busy making up its 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 1G7 

accounts. One circumstance told for it. Tliere 
was no longer the same dearth of gold and silver 
which had embarrassed commerce so much at the 
becinnino; of the war. A gainful intercourse was 
now opened with the West Indies. The Frencli 
army and the French fleet were here, and hard 
money with them. Louis-d'ors and livres, and 
Spanish dollars, — how welcome must their pleas- 
ant faces have looked, after this long, long absence 1 
With what a thrill must the hand which for years 
had touched nothing but Continental bills have 
closed u})on solid gold and silver ! It is easy to con- 
ceive that a new spirit must soon have manifested 
itself in the wide circle of contractors and agents, 
— that shopkeepers must speedily have discovered 
that their business was shifting its ground as they 
obtained a reliable standard for counting their 
losses and gains, — that every branch of trade 
must have felt a new vigor diffusine; itself through 
its veins. But it is equally evident, that, while the 
gold and silver which flowed in upon them from 
these sources strengthened the people for the work 
they were to do and the burdens they were to 
bear, the comparisons they were daily making be- 
tween fluctuating paper and steadfast metal were 
not of a nature to strengthen their faith in money 
that could be made by a turn of the printing-press 
and a few strokes of the pen. 

Another circumstance told for Congress, too. 
The accession of Maryland had fulfilled the condi- 



168 LECTURE V. 

tions for the acceptance of the Confederation so 
long held in abeyance, and the finances were taken 
from a board, and intrusted to the hands of a skil- 
ful and energetic financier. Robert Morris, who 
had protested energetically against the tender-laws, 
made specie payments the condition of his accept- 
ance of office ; and on the 22d of May, though not 
without a struggle, Congress resolved " that the 
whole debts already due by the United States be 
liquidated as soon as may be to their specie value, 
and funded, if agreeable to the creditors, as a loan 
upon interest; that the States be severally informed 
tliat the calculations of the expenses of the present 
campaign are made in solid coin, and therefore 
that the requisitions from them respectively, being 
gi'ounded on those calculations, must be complied 
with in such manner as effectually to answer the 
purpose designed ; that, experience having evinced 
the inefficacy of all attempts to support the credit 
of pajjcr money by compulsory acts, it is recom- 
mended to such States, where laws making paper 
bills a tender yet exist, to repeal the same." 

Another public body, the Supreme Executive 
Council of Penrfsylvania, dealt paper another blow, 
fixing the ratio at which it was to be received in 
public payments at one hiindred and seventy-five 
for one. Circulation ceased. In a short time the 
money that had been carted to and fro in reams 
disappeared from the shop, the counting-room, the 
market. All dealings were in hard money. Gold 



FINANCES OF TUB REVOLUTION. 169 

and silver resumed their legitimate sway, and men 
began to look hopefully forward to a return of 
economy, frugality, and invigorating commerce. 

The Superintendent of Finance entered seri- 
ously upon his task. One great obstacle had been 
removed ; one great and decisive step had been 
made towards the restoration of that sense of se- 
curity without wliicli industry and enterprise are 
powerless. As a merchant, he was familiar with 
the resources of the country ; as a member of Con- 
gress, he was familiar with the wants of govern- 
ment. His resources were taxes and loans ; his 
obligations, an old debt and a daily expenditure. 
Opposed as he was to the irresponsible currency 
which had brought the country to the brink of 
ruin, he -was a believer in banks and bills resting 
on a secure basis. One of his earliest measures 
was to prepare, with the aid of his Assistant-Super- 
intendent, Gouverneur Morris, a plan of a bank, 
■which soon after, with the sanction of Congress, 
went into operation as the Bank of North Ameri- 
ca. Small as the capital with which it started 
was, — only four hundred thousand dollars, — its 
influence was immediately felt throughout the coun- 
try. It gave an impulse to legitimate enterprise 
which had long been wanting, and a confidence to 
buyer and seller which they had not felt since the 
first year of the war. In his public operations the 
Superintendent used it freely, and, using it at the 
same time wisely, was enabled to call upon it for 



170 LECTURE V. 

aid to the full extent of its ability without impair- 
ing its strength. 

Henceforth the financial history of the Revolu- 
tion, although it loses none of its importance, loses 
much of its narrative-interest. No longer a hand- 
to-hand conflict between coin and paper, — no 
longer the melancholy spectacle of wise men doing 
luiwise things, and honorable men doing things 
which, in any other form, they would have been 
the first to condemn as dishonorable, — it still con- 
tinues a long, a wearisome, and often a mortifying 
struggle ; still presents the sad spectacle of men 
knowing their duty and refusing to do it ; knowing 
consequences, and yet blindly shutting their eyes 
to them. I will give but one example. 

After a careful estimate for the operations of 
1782, Congress had called upon the States for eight 
millions of dollars. Up to January, 1783, only four 
hundred and twenty thousand had come into the 
Treasury. Four hundred thousand Treasury-notes 
were almost due ; tlie funds in Europe were over- 
drawn to the amount of five hundred thousand by 
the sale of drafts. But Morris, waiting only to 
cover himself by a special authorization of Congress, 
made fi'esh sales upon the hopes of the Dutch 
loan and the possibility of a new French loan, and 
still held on — as cautiously as he could, but ever 
boldly and skilfully — his anxious way tlu-ough 
the rocks and shoals that menaced him on every 
side. He was rewarded, as faithful servants too 



FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 171 

often are, hj calumny and suspicion. But when 
men came to look closely at his acts, comparing his 
means with his wants, and the expenditure of the 
Treasury Board with the expenditure of the Fi- 
nance Office, it was seen and acknowledged that 
he had saved the country thu'teen millions a year 
in hard money. 

And now, from our stand-point of the Peace of 
1783, let us give a parting glance at the ground 
over which we have passed. We see thirteen 
Colonies, miited by interest, divided by habits, 
association, and tradition, engaging in a doubtful 
contest with one of the most powerful and ener- 
getic nations that ever existed; we see them 
begin, as men always do, with very imperfect 
conceptions of the time it would last, the length 
to which it would carry them, or the sacrifices 
it would impose ; we see them boldly adopting 
some measures, timidly shrinking from others, 
— reasoning justly about some things, reasoning 
falsely about things equally important, — endowed 
at times with singular foresight, visited at times 
with incomprehensible blindness ; boatmen on a 
mighty river, strong themselves and resolute and 
skilful, plying their oars manfully from first to last, 
but borne onward by a current which no human 
science could measure, no human strength could 
resist. 

They knew that the resources of the country 
were exhaustless; and they threw themselves 



]7'i Ijurniin: v. 

14)101) lliiiae ruttuiu'uott in tlio only way hy wliii!li 
tliuy I'uitli] rutirli tln^iii. Tliiir lulls oCcritilil, wuro 
the t)irn|iiil)g' III' iMlllillMiii-:!!! iiiiij Inilli. 'i'lii' I'lilliii- 
tiiiibiii gi'uw I'liill, ilii. liiiili liiil< ij. Willi ii liiilii 

IlltU'i'- •■nlllllftiilhlll, lllti pL'.(i|i|Li WOlllil r||t:r||||||y ImVii 

Hiiliiiiilluil III luxiiliwii ; wiiii u liiiKt muri-. liuili, ilitt 

ClUlgrai:)!:) Wmilll llUVU luXUll tluMll. Ill I hit (-ml, 

lliL! |(L;n|i|tj ]iiiiil jiii' l.hu ahuiU'iiinhi^a nl' Mniir 
liiilliiiuiutiiii hy Huvuiily millimia ul' iiiiliit*<l, liuu- 
Hull, - liuulidii thntiigh ilupi'ui-iutinii ^ the. ( 'uii- 
gi'uisrt pwid llii' llir hhiii i.uiiiiiiga 111' ita lliilh hy tlio 
liiHH III' ciiiiljiiLfiu II mitl ^l^■5|tL'^■|. 'I'hi'. Will' li It ihu 

rniiiiliy vvilh H IJudorul ihihl ol ni-vilily liillliuii 

ill. II, II,,, iiinl ;iiiilu tjuhla dl' ubwrly twoiity-six mil 

linliH, 

Oiiiilil [\\\ii hiiva bboa uviiiiletr/ ('milil llu-y 
huvti tli'iiit i.ilic.i'wjao y Jt is eiiay, whin ihc, hiiliKt 
ia wnii, 111 lull hdw vit'lciry iiiighl. huvo htum htMinht, 
»-.|iL)ii|K'r, whim iht-i «'i(iii|nii}^ii ia tiii<lnt|, in hIuiw 
whiil iiiImJiI |trrhii|i.-i havo lu'iiiiy^hl il. lu tin i-ui'lior 
aiiil iimrtJ gluriuiiH fjnau. It ia away lui' via, witli 
I ho sviiiilti lii^lil JitiliH'o ua, to Hwo tiiiit iViiin tho 
hup,imiiMg, liMiii Ihu vury Jirat atiirt, ulthnu^h Ihu 
liuiiuila una 'l'<*.tuUion% tlio jji'lnoipla whs Jndejmir 
iknot' : hill huliiru Avu visnturu to )iuaa auiitonru 
U|iiiii lliu nliiii'lruiiuiiii;a of iiiir lathui'ti, might wu.iiot 

III |iiiilMu aiiil ilwrll awhili! iijMiii uiir own, wo 

who, III Ihu liurrui' iruiilual lliiiuigh vvhirli wu iiro 
|iat4rtiiig, imvu ao hiiig I'ailud to aow, thai, whilo th« 
turmiilu ia H^oti»>tioh^ ihu |iiiiioi|ila i^ iStuveri^ ? 



].ia:'i [} i< I'] V I. 
'nth'. f)irij<mA(ir ov thk lu-jVOfAmo^. 

W'ff'/K «, tktrtrppittn nytt^tikn tthmi iha Atrj6f)- 
(•tin TiAvoldfloti^ )iA Rpf^ftks <rf' if ins fliM w^rrk 
'.f Wrts)iirigf/rrj «n<l VrftukUn. Tfi^sfi tw'> Tinrnes 
ftfrtlro/ly i'(rf Ink wilfid ttll ifm phtin^n (A' iha (Urtit^ni 
»fu\ f^yplrtin (is msulf, Tlifi milUrtry ^t^ruUH i^ 
W«sfiifi^f/rfi, ^'ring )i«fj^l In \mu({ wit.fi ffie clt'll 

t,nr^- We h«fj }»««f^l ^1^' '/thftf Ttttrries «tid rrmy fe- 
mftrnf/w uimp, M' them j fmf, i\mm fl-m ih« ^ly f,w^ 
w)i'uU hftv© tftken their pla^e Ui his mturufry^ «t the 
fti^le </f the great names (A' iijnrtrpmn )»ist<rry. 

/fi |»>irt t)i)« is //wirr^ f/r the \wphrttifit(^ wiii''fi nil 
K,Mr'rj>f«r»s «ttJi/',fi U) fhe Fren<-f» ftllirtri^.e as <me //f' 
Mie /'.hiAf <'ftfl8e» (yf (rttr mtid^m, V(rf theft^ m ti(fW<, 
f'Vnr»/e Iia|<( ft, j»1ftye «rri'»r»^ ttie great i^^irwers (A' 
tlie Wf/rid which gave luiyurrtnut^ Ut wll tier tmrvd' 
ttmttHi With direct a^ic^as t^^ two rr^' tf»e p^ino-ipal 
thf^atres <ff Knrff^mim strife fln'l easy ar-eess t^» the 
third, she never raised her arm with^/nt drawing 
immefliaf^ attenti/'/w. if less pfjrwerfitl t!»«n fCng- 
larid oTi tfie ^K^ean^ stie was mwe jx/werfrd thw© 



174 LECTURE VI. 



1 



than any other nation ; and even England's supe- 
riority was often and sometimes successfully con- 
tested. The adoption by such a power of the cause 
of a people so obscure as the people of the " Thir- 
teen Colonies " then were, was, in the opinion of 
European statesmen, decisive of its success. The 
fact of our actual poverty was known to all ; few, 
if any, knew that we possessed exhaustless sources 
of wealth. Our weakness was on the surface ; 
palpable, manifest, forcing itself upon attention ; 
om' strength lay out of sight, in rich veins, which 
none but eyes familiar with their secret wmdmgs 
could trace. Thus the French alliance, as the 
European interpreted it, was the alliance of wealth 
with poverty, of strength with weakness ; a mag- 
nanimous recognition of efforts which, without that 
recognition, would have been vain. What, then, 
must have been the persuasive powers, the com- 
manding genius of the man who procured that 
recognition ? 

Partly, also, this opinion is owing to the per- 
sonal character and personal position of Franklin. 
Franklin was pre-eminently a wise man, wise in 
the speculative science and wise in the practical art 
of life. Something of the maturity of age seems 
to have tempered the livehest sallies of his youth ; 
and much of the vivacity of youth mingles with 
the sober wisdom of his acre. Thoughtful and 
self-controlling at twenty, at seventy his ripe expe- 
rience was warmed by a genial glow. He entered 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 175 

upon life witli the feeling that he had a part to per- 
form, and the conviction that his happiness would 
depend upon his performing it well. What that 
part was to be was his earliest study ; and a social 
temperament, combining with a sound judgment, 
quickly taught him that the happiness of the in- 
dividual is inseparably connected with the happi- 
ness of the species. Thus life became his study 
as a condition of happiness ; man and nature, as 
the means of obtaining it. He sought to control 
his passions as he sought to control the lightning, 
that he might strip them of their power to harm. 
Sagacious in the study of causes, he was still 
more sagacious in tracing their connection with 
effects ; and his speculations often lose somewhat 
of their grandeur by the simple and unpretending 
directness with which he adapts them to the com- 
mon understanding and makes them minister to 
the common wants of life. The ambition which 
quickened his early exertions met an early reward. 
He was ambitious to write well, and he became 
one of the best writers in our language. He was 
ambitious of knowledge, and he laid it up in such 
stores that men sought his conversation in order to 
learn from him. He was ambitious of pecuniary 
independence, and he accumulated a fortune that 
made h'm master of his time and actions. He was 
ambitious of influence, and he obtained a rare con- 
trol over the thoughts and the passions of men. He 
was ambitious of fame, and he connected his name 



176 LECTURE VI. 

with the boldest and grandest discovery of his 
age. 

Living thus in harmony with himself, he enjoyed 
the rare privilege of living in equal harmony with 
the common mind and the advanced mind of his 
contemporaries. He entered into every-day wants 
and feelings as if he had never looked beyond 
them, and thus made himself the counsellor of 
the people. He appreciated the higher wants and 
nobler aspirations of our nature, and thus became 
the companion and friend of the philosopher. His 
interest in the present, and it was a deep and ac- 
tive interest, did not prevent him from looking for- 
ward with kindling sympathies to the future. 
Like the diligent husbandman of whom Cicero 
tells us, he could plant trees without expecting to 
see their fruit. If he detected folly with a keen 
eye, he did not revile it with a bitter heart. Hu- 
man weakness, in his estimate of life, formed an 
inseparable part of human nature, the extremes 
of virtue often becoming the starting-points of 
vice ; better treated, all of them, by playful ridi- 
cule than by stern reproof. He might never have 
gone with Howard in search of abuses ; but he 
would have drawn such pictures of those near 
home, as would have made some laugh and some 
blush and all unite heartily in doing away with 
them. With nothing of the ascetic, he could im- 
pose self-denial and bear it. Like Erasmus, he 
may not have aspired to become a martyr ; but in 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 177 

those long voyages and journeys, which, in his in- 
firm old age, he undertook in his country's service, 
there was much of the sublimest spirit of martyr- 
dom. His philosophy, a philosophy of observation 
and induction, had taug-ht him caution in the for- 
mation of opinions, and candor in his judgments. 
With distinct ideas upon most subjects, he was 
never so wedded to his own views as to think that 
all who did not see things as he did must be wil- 
fully blind. His justly tempered faculties lost none 
of their serene activity or gentle philanthropy by 
age. Hamilton himself, at thirty, did not labor 
with more earnestness at the formation of the Con- 
stitution, than Fi'anklin at eighty-one ; and as if 
in solemn record of his own interpretation of it, 
his last public act, with eternity full in view, was 
to head a memorial to Congress for the abolition 
of the slave-trade. 

That such a man should pioduce a strong impres- 
sion upon the excitable mind of France must be 
evident to every one who knows how excitable 
that mind is. But to understand his public as 
well as his personal position, not so much at the 
French court as at the court of French opinion, 
we must go back a dozen years and see what that 
opinion had been since the peace of 1763. 

The treaty of Paris, like all treaties between 
equals founded upon the temporary superiority of 
one over the other, had deeply wounded, not the 
vanity only, but the pride of France. Humbled 

8* L 



178 LECTURE VI. 

in the eyes of her rival, humbled in the eyes of 
Europe, she was still more profoundly humbled in 
her own. A barbed and venomous arrow had been 
haughtily left to rankle in the wound. For high- 
minded Frenchmen, it was henceforth the wisdom 
as well as the duty of France to prepare the means 
and hasten the hour of revenge. It was then that 
the eyes of French statesmen were first opened to 
the true position of the American Colonies. It was 
then that they first saw how much the 2>rosperity of 
the parent state depended upon the sure and con- 
stant flow of wealth and strength from this exhaust- 
less source. Then, too, they first saw that in obe- 
dience to the same law by which they had grown 
into strength, these Colonies, in due time, nmst 
grow into independence ; and in this independence, 
in this severing of ties which they foresaw English 
pride would cling to, long after English avidity 
had stripped them of their natural strength, there 
was the prospect of full and sweet revenge. 

Scarce a tAvelvemonth had passed from the sign- 
ing of the treaty of Paris, when the first French 
emissary, an ofticer of the French navy, was al- 
ready at his work in the Colonies. Passing to and 
fro, travelling here and there, moving fi'om place 
to place as any common traveller might have done, 
his eyes and his ears were ever open, his note-book 
was ever in his hand, and, without awakening the 
suspicions of England, the first steps in a work to 
which the Duke of Choiseul looked forward as the 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 179 

crowning glory of his administration were wisely 
and surely taken. They were promptly followed 
up. The French Ambassador in England estab- 
lished relations with Colonial agents in London, 
which enabled him to follow the progress of the 
growing discontent and anticipate the questions 
which must soon be brought forward for decision. 
Franklin's examination before the House of Com- 
mons became the text of an elaborate despatch, 
harmonizing with the report of his secret agent, 
and opening a prospect which even the weary eyes 
of Louis XV. could not look upon without some 
return of the spirit that had won for his youth the 
long forfeited title of the Well-beloved ! It was 
not the first time that the name of the great phi- 
losopher had been heard in the council-chamber 
of Versailles. But among the secret agents of 
France, we now meet for the first time the name 
of De Kalb, a name consecrated in American his- 
tory by the life that he laid down for us on the fatal 
field of Camden. Scarce a step was taken by the 
English ministry that was not instantly communi- 
cated by the Ambassador in London to the French 
Minister at Versailles, with speculations, always in- 
genious, often profound, upon its probable results. 
Scarce a stop was taken in the Colonies without at- 
tracting the instant attention of the French affent. 
Never were events more closely studied or their 
character better understood. When troops were 
sent to Boston, the English ministry was not with- 



180 LECTURE YI. 

out serious apprehensions of resistance. But when 
the tidings of their peaceful landing came, Avhile the 
English were exulting in their success, the French 
Ambassador rejoiced that the -wisdom of the Colo- 
nial leaders had withheld them from a form of op- 
position for which they were not yet ready. The 
English ministry was pi-eparing to enter ujion a 
system of coercion at the ])oint of tlie bayonet. 
" If the Colonists submit under the pressure," said 
Choiseul, " it will only be in appearance and for a 
short time." 

jNIeanwhile his active brain was teeming with 
projects : the letters of his agents were teeming 
with suggestions. Frances counsels caution, dreads 
the effects of hasty measures ; for the Colonists 
have not yet learnt to look upon France as a friend, 
and premature action might serve only to bind 
them more firmly to England. Du Chatelet pro- 
poses that France and Spain, sacrificing their old 
colonial system, should open their colonial ports to 
the products of the English colonies ; thus inflict- 
ing a fatal blow upon England's commerce, while 
they supplant her in the aft'ections of the Colonists. 
A clerk in the department of commerce goes still 
ftu'ther, advocating a full emancipation of the 
French colonies, both to throw ofiJ" a useless bui'- 
den and to increase the irritation of the English 
colonies by the spectacle of an independence which 
they were not permitted to share. 

There is nothing in history more humiliating 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 181 

than to see on what small hinges great events 
sometimes turn. Of all the disgraceful intrigues 
of a palace filled with intrigues from the day of its 
foundation, there is none half so disgraceful as 
the overthrow of the Dnlce of Choiseul in 1770. 
And yet vile as it was both by its motive and by 
its agents, it marks an important point in the pro- 
gress of American independence. A bow more, 
a sarcasm less, might have confirmed the power of a 
man, whose deep-rooted hatred of England was 
fast hastening to its natural termination, an open 
rupture ; and a premature rupture would have 
brought the Colonists into the field, either as the 
subjects of England or as the allies of France. To 
secure the dependence of the Colonies, England 
would have been compelled to make large conces- 
sions ; and timely concessions might have put 
off the day of separation for another century. To 
secure the alliance of the Colonies, France would 
have been compelled to take upon herself the bur- 
den of the war ; a French general might have 
led our armies ; French gold might have paid our 
troops ; we might have been spared the sufferings of 
Valley Forgo, the humiliation of bankruptcy ; but 
where would have been the wise discipline of 
adversity? and, if great examples be as essential to 
the formation of national as of individual character, 
what would the name of independence have been 
to us, without the example of our Washington? 
French diplomacy had little to do with the 



182 LECTURE VI. 

American events of the next five years. England, 
unconscious how near she had been to a new wai 
with her old enemy, held blindly on in her course 
of irritation and oppression ; the Colonies contin- 
ued to advance by sure steps from resistance by 
votes and resolves to resistance by the sword. 
When Louis XVI. ascended the throne in 1774, 
and Vergennes received the portfolio of foreign 
affairs, domestic interests pressed too hard upon 
them to allow of their resuming at once the vast 
plans of the fallen minister. Unlike that minister, 
Vergennes, a diplomatist by profession, preferred 
watchino; and waiting; events to the hastenino; or 
anticipating them. But to watch and wait events 
like those which were then passing in the Colonies 
without being drawn into the vortex was beyond 
the power of even his well-trained and sagacious 
mind. In 1775, a French emissary Avas again 
taking the measure of American perseverance ; 
French ambassadors were again bringing forward 
American questions as the most important ques- 
tions of their correspondence. That expression 
which has been put into so many mouths as a sum- 
ming up of the value of a victory was applied in 
substance by Vergennes to the battle of Bunker 
Hill, — "Two more victories of this kind, and the 
English will have no army left in America." 

And while thus tempted by this proof of Amer- 
ican strength, his wavering mind Avas irritated by 
the apprehension of some sudden outbreak of 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 183 

English arrogance ; for the Ambassador wrote that 
Whigs and Tories might yet unite in a war against 
France in order to put an end to the troubles in 
the Colonies, — and no Frenchman had forgotten 
that England began the war of 1755 by an open 
violation of international law, by seizing three hun- 
dred French merchant ships and casting into prison 
ten thousand French sailors, before the declaration 
of hostilities. Thus events prepared the way for 
American diplomacy ; and, more powerful than the 
prudence of Vergennes or the pacific longings of 
Louis XVL, compelled them to decide and act, 
when they would still gladly have discussed and 
waited. 

And, moreover, a new element had been intro- 
duced into the councils of statesmen, or, rather, an 
element hitherto circumscribed and resisted had 
begun to act with irresistible force. Public opin- 
ion speaking through the press by eloquent pens, 
through coflPee-houses and saloons by eloquent 
voices, called loudly for action in the name of hu- 
manity and in the still more exciting name of 
French honor. Little as most Frenchmen knew 
about America, they knew enough about England to 
believe that in her disputes with other nations she 
was apt to be in the wrong ; and if with other na- 
tions, why not with her own colonies ? The long- 
ing for revenge which ever since the treaty of Paris 
filled some corner of every French heart, grew 
stronger at the near approach of so abundant a 



184 LECTURE VI. 

harvest ; nor did it lose any of its sweetness fi-oni 
tlie reflection that their enemy liimself was doing 
what they could never have done alone to prepare 
it for them. 

But humanity, too, was a powerful word. Men 
could not read Rousseau without being led to think 
more earnestly, if not always more profoundly, upon 
the laws of social organization. They could not 
read Voltaire without a clearer perception of abuses 
and a more vigorous contempt for the systems 
which had put the many into the hands of the few 
to be butchered or butchers at then* will. They 
could not read Montesquieu without feeling that 
there was a future in store for them for which the 
long past had been patiently laboring, and longing, 
as they read, to hasten its coming. In that future, 
mankind were to rise higher than they had ever 
risen before ; rulers and ruled were to act in fruit- 
ful harmony for their common good ; the brightest 
virtues of Greece, the purest virtues of Rome, were 
to revive in some new form of society, not very 
definitely conceived by the understanding, but 
wdiicli floated in magnificent visions before the 
glowing imagination. 

I hasten reluctantly over this part of my subject ; 
for the formation of public opinion m France and 
its action upon government, even while all the 
forms of an almost absolute monarchy were pre- 
served, is an important chapter in the history of 
Eui'opean civilizatioii. But hasten I must, merely 



VIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 185 

calling attention to the existence of this element, 
and reminding mj readei' that, chronologically, of 
the two parts which composed this opinion, hatred 
for England had been at ^york ever since 1763, 
while sympathy with the Colonists was rather an 
individual than a public feeling till late in 1776. 

It was at Versailles and not at Paris that action 
began. Vergennes's first step was to send another 
agent, no longer merely to observe and report, but to 
ascertain, though without compromising the French 
government, how far the Americans were prepared 
for French intervention. English suspicions were 
already awakened. Already the English Minister 
had informed the French Ambassador, upon the 
authority of a private letter of General Lee to Gen- 
eral Burgoyne, that the Americans were sure of 
French aid. It was not without great difficulty 
that the new agent, De Bonvouloir, could find a 
safe conveyance. But by December he was al- 
ready in Philadelphia, and, though still pretending 
to be a mere traveller, was soon in full communica- 
tion with the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 

The appointment of this committee on the 29th 
of November, 1775, is the beginning of the his- 
tory of our foreign relations. Then began our at- 
tempts to gain admission into the great family of 
nations as an independent power, — attempts not 
always judiciously du'ected, attended in some in- 
stances with disappointment and mortification, but 
crowned at last with as full a measure of success 



186 LECTURE VI. 

as those who understood monarchy and Europe 
could have anticipated. Tavo of its members, 
Franldin and Dickinson, were ah'eady known 
abroad, where, at a later day, Jay also was to make 
himself an enduring name. The other two, John- 
son and Harrison, enjoyed and merited a high 
Colonial reputation. 

There can be but little doubt that Franklin's 
keen eye quickly penetrated the veil under which 
De Bonvouloir attempted to conceal his real char- 
acter. It was not the first time that he had been 
brought into contact with French diplomacy, nor 
the first proof he had seen that France was watch- 
ing the contest in the hope of abasing the power 
of her rival. While agent in London for four. Colo- 
nies, — a true Ambassador, if to watch events, study 
character, give timely warning and wise counsel, 
is the office of an ambassador, — he had lived on 
a friendly footing with the French legation and 
profited by it to give them correct views of the 
character and feelings of the Colonies. And now, 
reducing the question to these simple heads, he 
asked, — 

"How is France disposed towards us? if favor- 
ably, what assurance will she give us of it ? 

" Can we have from France two good engineers, 
and how shall we apply for them ? 

" Can we have, by direct communication, arms 
and munitions of war, and free entrance and exit 
for our vessels in French ports? " 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 187 

But whatever reliance they may have placed on 
the French emissary, the committee were unwill- 
ing to confine themselves to this as the only means 
of opening communication with European powers. 
Durincr a visit to Holland, Franklin had formed 
the acquaintance of a Swiss gentleman of the name 
of Dumas : a man of great learning and liberal 
sentiments, and whose social position gave him 
access to sure sources of information. To him he 
now addressed himself with the great question of 
the moment : " If we throw off our dependence 
upon Great Britain, will any court enter into alli- 
ance with us and aid us for the sake of our com- 
merce ? " 

Such then, was the starting-point of our diplo- 
matic history; the end and aim of all our nego- 
tiations ; alliance and aid for the sake of our com- 
merce. 

But we should greatly mistake the character of 
the times if we suppose that this point was reached 
without many and warm debates. When the ques- 
tion was first started in Congress, that body was 
found to be as much divided upon this as upon any 
of the other subjects which it was called upon to 
discuss. With Franklin, one party held that, in- 
stead of asking for treaties with European powers, 
we should first conquer our independence, when 
those powers, allured by our commerce, would come 
and ask us ; the other, with John Adams, that as 
our true policy and a mark of respect from a new 



188 LECTURE VI. 

nation to old ones, we ought to send ministers to 
every gi-eat court of Europe in order to obtain the 
recognition of our independence and form treaties 
of amity and commerce. Frankhn, who had al- 
ready outlived six treaties of " firm and lasting 
peace " and now saw the seventh swiftly approach- 
ing its end, might well doubt the efficacy of those 
acts to which his young and impetuous colleague 
attached so much importance. But in Congress 
the majority was with Adams, and for a while 
there was what Gouverneur Morris called a rage 
for treaties. 

The Committee of Secret Correspondence, as I 
have already said, was formed in November, 1775. 
One of its first measures was to appoint agents, 
Arthur Lee for London, Dumas for the Hague, 
and, early in the following year, Silas Deane for 
France. Lee immediately opened relations with 
the French court by means of the French Ambas- 
sador in London ; and Deane, on his arrival in 
France in June, followed them up with great intel- 
ligence and zeal. A million of livres was placed 
by Vergennes in the hands of Beaumarchais, who 
assumed the name of Hortalez & Co., and arranged 
with Deane the measures for transmitting it to 
America in the shape of arms and supplies. 

And now the Declaration of Independence came 
to add the question of i*ecognition to the question 
of aid. But recognition was a declaration of war, 
and to bring the French government to this deci 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 189 

sive pass required the highest diplomatic skill sup- 
poi'ted by dignity and weight of character. There 
was but one man in the new Republic in whom 
these qualities were combined, and that man was 
Franklin. 

The histoiy of diplomacy, with its long record of 
solemn entrances and brilliant processions, its daz- 
zling pictures of thrones and courts, which make 
the head dizzy and the heart sick, has no scene 
half so grand as the entrance of this unattended, 
unushered old man into France in December, 
1776. No one knew of his comino; until he stood 
among them : and then, as they looked upon his 
serene yet grave and thoughtful face, — upon his 
gray hairs which carried memory back to the fatal 
year of Ramillies and the waning glories of the 
great Louis, — on the right hand which had writ- 
ten words of persuasive wisdom for prince and 
peasant, which had drawn the lightning from its 
home in the heavens, and was now stretched forth 
with such an imperial grasp to strip a sceptre they 
all hated of its richest jewel, — a feeling of rever- 
ential awe came over them, and they bowed them- 
selves before him as, in the secret depths of their 
hearts, they had never bowed to emperor or king. 
" He is at Nantes. He is on the road," was whis- 
pered from mouth to mouth in the saloons of the 
capital, as his landing became known. Some as- 
serted confidently that he had already reached 
Paris, others that he might be hourly expected. 
Then came the certainty : he had slept at Ver- 



190 LECTURE VI. 

sailles the night of the 21st, had come to Paris at 
two the next afternoon, and now was at his lodg- 
ings in the Rue de I'Universite. 

No one, perhaps, was more surprised than Frank- 
lin to find himself the object of such universal at- 
tention. But no one knew better than he how to 
turn it to account for the accomplishment of his 
purpose. In a few days he withdrew to the quiet 
little village of Passy, at easy distance both from 
the city and the court ; and, without endeavoring 
to increase the public curiosity by an air of mys- 
tery or seclusion, kept himself sufficiently in the 
background to prevent that curiosity from losing its 
stimulant by too great a familiarity with its object. 
Where men of science met for the discussion 
of a new theory or the trial of a new experiment, 
he was to be seen amongst them with an unpre- 
tending air of intelligent interest, and wise sug- 
gestions, never indiscreetly proffered, never indis- 
creetly withheld. Where humane men met to 
discuss some question of practical benevolence, 
or philosophers to debate some principle of social 
organization, he was always prepared to take his 
part with apt and far-reaching illustrations from 
the stores of his meditation and experience. Some- 
times he was to be seen in places of amusement, 
and always with a genial smile, as if in his sympathy 
with the enjoyment of others he had forgotten his 
own perplexities and cares. In a short time he 
had drawn around him the best minds of the capi- 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 191 

tal, and laid his skilful hand on the public pulse 
with an unerring accuracy of touch, which told him 
when to speak and when to be silent, when to urge 
and when to leave events to their natiu'al progress. 
Ever active, ever vigilant, no opportunity was suf- 
fered to escape him, and yet no one whose good- 
will it was desirable to propitiate was disgusted by 
injudicious importunity. Even Vergennes, who 
Ivnew that his comino- was the sio;nal of a new fa- 
vor to be asked, found in his way of asking it such 
a cheerful recognition of its true character, so con- 
siderate an exposition of the necessities which made 
it urgent, that he never saw him come without 
pleasure. If he had been a vain man, he would 
have enjoyed his position too much to make good 
use of it for the cause he came to serve. If he 
had been a weak man, he would have fallen under 
the control of the opinion which it was his office 
to guide. If he had not possessed a pure and gen- 
uine sympathy with human nature, he would not 
have been able, at the age of seventy, to enter 
into the feelings of a people so different from those 
among whom he had always lived. And if he had 
not been stimulated by earnest convictions, and 
governed by high principles, he would not have 
been able to withstand the frequent and insidious 
attempts that were made to shake his fortitude and 
undermine his fidelity. But in him, as in Wash- 
ington, there was a rare predominance of that 
sound common-sense which is man's surest guide 



192 LECTURE VI. 

in his relations with events, and that firm belief in 
the progress of humanity which is his best reliance 
in his relations with men. 

Congi'ess had given him two associates in his 
commission to France, Silas Deane of Connecti- 
cut, and Arthur Lee of Virginia. Deane had 
been a member of Congress, was active, enterpris- 
ing, and industrious ; but his Judgment was not 
sound, his knowledge of men not extensive, his ac- 
quaintance with great interests and his experience 
of great affairs insufficient for the important posi- 
tion in which he was placed. Lee had lived long 
in England, was an accomplished scholar, a good 
writer, familiar with the character of European 
statesmen and the politics of European courts ; but 
vain, jealous, irritable, suspicious ; ambitious of the 
first honors, and disposed to look upon every one 
who attracted more attention than himself as his 
natural enemy- Deane, deeply impressed with 
the importance of Franklin's social position for the 
ftdfilment of their common duties, although ener- 
getic and active, cheerfully yielded the precedence 
to his more experienced colleague. Lee, conscious 
of his own accomplishments, regarded the deference 
paid to Franklin as an insult to liimself, and 
promptly resumed in Paris the war of petty in- 
trigue and secret accusation, which, a few years 
before, he had wajrcd against him in Enoland. In 
this vile course Congress soon unwittingly gave 
him a worthy coadjutor, by appointing, as Com- 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 103 

missioiier to Tuscany, Ralph Izard of South Car- 
ohna ; who, without rendering a single service, 
without even goino; near the court to which be was 
accredited, continued for two years to draw his sal- 
ary and abuse Dr. Franklin. 

"When Franklin reached Paris, he found that 
Deane had already made himself a respectable po- 
sition ; and tliat, tlu-ough Caron de Beaumarcliais, 
the brilliant author of Figaro, the French gov- 
ernment had begun that system of pecuniary aid 
which it continued to render throughout the whole 
course of the war. Vergennes granted the com- 
missioners an early interview, listened respectfully 
to their statements, asked them for a memorial to 
lay before the King, assured them of the personal 
protection of the French court, promised them 
every commercial facility not incompatible with 
treaty obligations with Great Britain, and advised 
them to seek an interview with the Spanish Am- 
bassador. The memorial Avas promptly drawn up 
and presented. A copy of it was given to the 
Spanish Ambassador to lay before the court of 
IMadrid. Negotiations were fairly opened. 

But Franklin soon became convinced that the 
French government had marked out for itself a line 
of policy, from which, as it was founded upon a 
just appreciation of its own interests, it would not 
sweiwe ; that it wished the Americans success, was 
prepared to give them secret aid in arms and mon- 
ey, and by a partial opening of its ports ; but that 

9 M 



194 LECTURE VI. 

it was compelled by the obligations of the family 
compact to time its own movements in a certain 
measm'e by those of Spain, and was not prepared 
to involve itself in a war with England by an 
open acknowledgment of the independence of the 
Colonies, until they had given fuller proof of the 
earnestness of their intentions and of their ability 
to bear their part in the contest. Nor was he long 
in perceiving that the French government was giv- 
ing the Colonies money which it sorely needed for 
paying its own debts and defraying its own ex- 
penses ; and thus, that however well-disposed it 
might be, there were certain limits beyond Avhich 
it was not in its power to go. It was evident, 
therefore, to his just and sagacious mind, that to 
accept the actual policy of France as the gage of 
a more open avowal under more favorable circum- 
stances, and to recognize the limits which her finan- 
cial embarrassments set to her pecuniary grants, 
was the only course that he could pursue without 
incurrino; the dano;er of defeatino- his own neo;otia- 
tions by excess of zeal. Meanwhile there was 
enough to do in strengthening the ground already 
gained, in counteracting the insidious efforts of 
English emissaries, in correcting erroneous impres- 
sions, in awakening just expectations, in keeping up 
that public interest which had so large a part in 
the formation of public opinion, and in so regulat- 
ing the action of that opinion as to make it bear 
with a firm and consistent and not unwelcome 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 195 

pressure upon the action of government. And in 
doing this he had to contend not only with the lo- 
cal difficulties of his position, but with the difficul- 
ty of uncertain communications, months often inter- 
vening between the sending of a despatch and the 
receivinof of an answer. Thus newsniono-ers had 
abundant opportunities for idle reports and un- 
founded conjectures, and enemies ample scope for 
malicious falsehoods. 

It was a happy circumstance for the new state 
that her chief representative was a man who knew 
when to wait with dignity, and when to act with 
energy ; for it was this just appreciation of circum- 
stances that gave him such a strong hold upon the 
mind of Vergennes, and imparted such weight to 
all his applications for aid. No sooner had Con- 
gress begun to receive money from Europe, than 
it began to draw bills upon its agents there, and 
often without any certainty that those agents would 
be in a condition to meet them. Bills were drawn 
on Mr. Jay when he was sent to Spain, and his 
already difficult position made doubly difficult and 
humiliating. Bills were drawn on Mr. Adams in 
Holland, and he was unable to pay them. But 
such was the confidence of the French court in the 
representations of Dr. Franklin, that he was not 
only enabled to honor all the drafts which were 
made upon him directly, but to relieve his less for- 
tunate colleagues from the embarrassments in which 
the precipitation of their own government had in- 
volved them. 



196 LECTURE VI. 

And thus passed the first twelve months of his 
residence in France, cloudy and anxious months, 
more especially during the summer of 1777, when 
it was known that Burgoyne was coming down by 
Lake Champlain, and Howe preparing for a great 
expedition to the northward. Then came the 
tidings that Howe had taken Philadelphia. " Say 
rather," said Franldin, with that air of conviction 
which carries conviction with it, " That Philadel- 
phia has taken Howe." Men paused as they re- 
peated his words, and suspended their judgment ; 
and when tlie news of the battle of Germantown 
and the surrender of Burgoyne followed, they felt 
deeper reverence for the calm old man who had 
reasoned so wisely when all others desponded. It 
was on the 4th of December that these welcome 
tidings reached Paris, and the commissioners lost 
no time in communicating them to the court. The 
second day after, the secretary of the King's Coun- 
cil came to them with ojfficial congratulations. Ne- 
gotiations were resumed and carried on rai)idly, 
nothing but a desire to consult the court of Madrid 
being allowed to retard them ; and on the 6th of 
February, 1778, the first treaty between the Unit- 
ed States and a foreign power was signed with all 
the formalities which custom has attached to these 
acts. On the 20th of March, the commissioners 
were presented to the King. 

Nor was it mere curiosity which filled the halls 
of the royal palace with an eager throng on that 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 197 

eventful day. These were the halls which had 
witnessed the gathering of powerful men and of 
great men to the footstool of the haughtiest of 
French kings ; which had seen a Cond^ and a Tu- 
renne lay down their laurels at the royal feet ; a 
Bossuet and a Boileau check the flow of indepen- 
dent thought to bask them in the beams of the royal 
smile ; a Fen^lon retiring with saddened brow to 
record for posterity the truths which he was not 
permitted to utter to the royal ear; a Racine, 
shrinking from the cold glance of the royal eye, 
and going home to die of a broken heart. Here 
Louis had signed the decree which sent his dra- 
goons to force his Protestant subjects to the mass 
and the confessional. Here he had received with 
a smile of triumph the tidings that the Pope him- 
self had been compelled to yield to his arrogant 
pretensions ; and here he had listened in haughty 
state when one of the last of the glorious republics 
of the Middle Ages, the city of Columbus and 
Andrew Doria, which had once covered the Med- 
iterranean with her ships, and sent forth her hardy 
mariners as from a nursery of brave men to impart 
their skill and communicate their enterprising ge- 
nius to the rest of Europe, humbled herself before 
him through her Doge, as, bowing his venerable 
head, the old man asked pardon in her name, not 
for the wrongs that she had committed, but for the 
wrongs that she had borne. 

And now, up those marble stairs, through those 



198 LECTURE VI. 

tapestried halls, canie three men of humble birth, 
two of whom had wrought for their daily bread 
and eaten it in the sweat of their brows, to receive 
tlieir recognition as the representatives of a power 
which had taken its place among the nations, not 
by virtue of the divine right of kings, but in the 
name of the inalienable rights of the people. Hap- 
py would it have been for the young King who sat 
in Louis's seat if he could have understood the 
full meaning of his act, and recognized at the same 
moment the claims of his own people to participate 
in tliat government which, deriving its strength 
from their labor, could have no security but in 

their love. 

Nothing could have demonstrated more clearly 
the wisdom of Franklin's contidence in the sincer- 
ity of the French government, than the generous 
and liberal terms of the treaty. No present ad- 
vantage was taken of the dependent condition of 
their now ally ; no prospective advantage was re- 
served for future contingencies. Only one condi- 
tion was stipulated, — and that as much in the 
interest of the Colonies as of France, — that they 
should never return to their allegiance. Only one 
reciprocal obligation was assumed, that neither 
pai'tv should make peace with England without 
the knowledge and consent of the other. All the 
rest was full and free reciprocation in the future, 
and the assurance of efficient aid in the present ; 
no anibiffuities, no doubtful expressions, no debat- 
able oround for interpretation to build upon and 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTIOX. 199 

weave the mazes of her subtile web ; but clear, 
distinct, and dotinite ; a mutual specification of 
mutual duties and mutual rights ; equal could not 
have treated more tirmly with equal than this new 
power, as yet unrecognized in the congress of na- 
tions, treated with the oldest monarchy of Europe. 

I have already alluded to the rage for treaties 
which prevailed for a while in Congress. It was 
tliis that sent William and Arthur Lee upon 
then* bootless errands to Vienna and Berlin; 
Francis Dana to St. Petersburg ; John Jay to en- 
counter embarrassment and mortification at Ma- 
drid ; and gave Ralph Izard an opportunity to 
di'aw an unearned salary, through two successive 
years, from the scanty fmids of the Congressional 
banker at Paris. 

Jay's situation was peculiai'ly trying. He had 
been Chief Justice of New York, President of 
Congress, had written some of the most eloquent 
state papers that were issued in the name of that 
bod}' whose state papers were ranked by Chat- 
ham among the best that ever were written, and, 
at a personal sacrifice, had exchanged a position of 
honor and dignity at home for a doubtful position 
abroad. A clear-headed, industrious, decided man, 
he had to contend, for more than two years, with 
the two qualities most alien to his natui'e, — habit- 
ual dilatoriness and diplomatic reticence. 

Spain, hke France, had marked out a path for 
herself, and it ^vaa impossible to move her fi'om it. 



200 LECTURE VI. 

He obtained some money to help him pay some of 
the drafts of Congress, but neither treaty nor rec- 
ognition. " They have taken four years," wrote 
FrankHn, " to consider whether they would treat 
with us: I would give them forty, and let us 
mind our own business." And still viewing the 
question as he had viewed it in the beginning, he 
wrote in his diary in May, 1782: "It seems to 
me that we have, in most instances, hurt our 
credit and importance by sending all over Europe, 
begging alliances and soliciting declarations of our 
independence. The nations, perhaps, from thence 
seemed to think that our independence is some- 
thing they have to sell, and that we do not offer 
enough for it." * 

The most important European event in its 
American bearings, after the recognition by France, 
was the armed neutrality of the Northern powers ; 
a court intrigue in Russia, though a sober act in 
Spain, — and which was followed in December, 
1780, by the addition of Holland to the open ene- 
mies of Encrland. 

Attempts had already been made to form a 
treaty with Holland ; first through William Lee, 
with such prospect of success as to induce Congress 
to send Henry Laurens to the Hague to continue 
the negotiations. Laurens was captured by an 
English cruiser, and soon after John Adams was 
directed to take his place. At Paris, Adams had 

* Franklin's Works, Vol. IX. p. 284, Sparks's edition. 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 201 

failed singularly as a negotiator ; lending a ready- 
ear to Lee, hardly attempting to disguise his jeal- 
ousy of Franklin, and enforcing his own opinions 
in a manner equally offensive to the personal feel- 
ings of the minister and the traditional usages of 
the court. But at the Hague he found a field 
better suited to his ardent temperament, and, 
backed by the brilliant success of the campaign of 
1781, and. the votes of the House of Commons in 
favor of reconciliation, succeeded in obtaining a 
public recognition in the spring of 1782, and con- 
cluding a treaty in the autumn. 

All these things were more or less upon the sur- 
face, — done and doing more or less openly. But 
under the surface the while, and known only to 
those directly concerned therein, were covert at- 
tempts on the part of England to open communi- 
cations with Franklin by means of personal friends. 
There had been nothing but the recognition of our 
independence that England would not have given 
to prevent the alliance with France ; and now 
there was nothing that she was not ready to do to 
prevent it from accomplishing its purpose. And it 
adds wonderfully to our conception of Franklin to 
think of him as goino; about with this knowledo-e, 
in addition to the knowledge of so much else in 
his mind ; this care, in addition to so many other 
cares, ever weighing upon his heart. Little did 
jealous, intriguing Lee know of these things ; pet- 
ulant, waspish Izard still less. A mind less sa- 

9* 



202 LECTURE VI. 

gacious than Franklin's might have grown suspi- 
cions under the influences that were empk\yed to 
awaken his distrust of Vergennes. And a charac- 
ter less firmly established would have lost its hold 
upon Vergennes amid the constant efforts that 
were made to shake his confidence in the gratitude 
and ffood faith of America. But Franklin, who 
believed that timely ftiith was a part of wisdom, 
went directly to the French Minister with the prop- 
ositions of the Enghsh emissaries, and frankly tell- 
ing him all about them, and taking counsel of him 
as to the manner of meeting them, not only stripped 
them of their power to harm him, but converted 
the very measures which his enemies had so insid- 
iously, and, as they deemed, so skilfully prepared 
for his ruin, into new sources of strength. 

Of the proffers of mediation in which first Spain 
and then Russia and the German Emperor were to 
take so important a part, as they bore no fruit, they 
may safely be passed over in silence ; simply observ- 
incr, as we pass, how little European statesmen un- 
derstood the business in which they were so ready 
to intermeddle, and what a curious spectacle Cath- 
arine and Kaunitz present, seeking to usher into 
the congress of kings the first true representative 
of that great principle of popular sovereignty which 
was to make all their thrones totter and tremble 
under them. And observing, too, that it furnished 
that self-dependence of John Adams which too 
often desenerated into arrogance an occasion to 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 203 

manifest itself in a nobler light ; for he refused to 
take part in the discussions in any other character 
than as the representative of an independent power. 
IMeanwhile, events were hastening the inevitable 
termination. In Europe, England stood alone, 
without either secret or open sympathy. In June, 
1779, a war with Spain had followed the Erench 
war of 1778. In July, 1780, the " armed neu- 
trality " had defined the position of the Northern 
powers adversely to her maritime pretensions. War 
Avas declaimed with Holland in December of the 
same year. In America, the campaign of 1781 
had stripped her of her Southern conquests, and 
cffiiced the impression of her early victories. At 
home her people Avere daily growmg more and 
more restless under the pressure of taxation ; and 
even the country gentlemen, who had stood by the 
ministry so long in the hope of transferring their 
own burden to the shoulders of their American 
brethren, began to give evident tokens of discon- 
tent. It was clear that England must consent to 
peace. And yet she still stood bravely up, pre- 
senting a bold front to each new enemy ; a grand 
spectacle in one light, for there is always some- 
thins; grand in indomitable coui'ao;e ; but a sad one 
in the true light, and one from which, a hundred 
years hence, the philosophic historian will turn with 
a shudder, when summing up all these events, and 
asking what all this blood was shed for, he shows 
that the only principle at stake on her part was 



204 LECTURE VI. 

that pernicious claim to control the industry of the 
■world which, had she succeeded, would have dried 
up the sources of prosperity in America, as it is 
fast di'ying them up in Ireland and in India.* 

Nor was jieace less necessary to her rival. The 
social revolution which the two last reigns had ren- 
dered inevitable, was movincj with oio-antic strides 
towards its bloody consummation. The last well- 
founded hope of reforms that should probe deep 
enough to anticipate revolution had disappeared 
with Turgot. The statesmanship of Vergennes 
had no remedy for social disease. It was a states- 
manship of alliances, and treaties, and wars, — tra- 
ditional and sometimes brilliant, — but all on the 
surface, leaving the wounded heart untouched, the 
sore spirit unconsoled. The financial skill of Neck- 
er could not reach the evil. It was mere banking 
skill, and nothing more ; very respectable in its 
time and place, filling a few mouths more with 
bread, but failing to see, although told of it long 
ago by one who never erred, that " man does not 
live by bread alone." The finances were in hope- 
less disorder. The resources of the country were 
almost exhausted. Public faith had been strained 
to the utmost. National forbearance had been put 
to humiliating tests under the last reign by the par- 
tition of Poland and the peace of Kainardji ; and 

* I cannot deny myself the pleasure of referring in this con- 
nection to Mr. Carey's admirable exposition of this fact in his 
"Principles of Political Science." 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 205 

the sense of self-respect had not been flilly restored 
by the American war. And although no one yet 
dreamed of what seven swift years were to bring 
forth, all minds were agitated by a mysterious con- 
sciousness of the approaching tempest. 

In 1782, the overtures of England began to as- 
sume a more definite form. Franklin saw that the 
time for decisive action was at hand, and prepared 
himself for it with his wonted calm and deliberate 
appreciation of circumstances. That France was 
sincere he could not doubt, after all the proofs she 
had given of her sincerity ; nor could he doubt 
that she would concur heartily in preparing the 
way for a lasting peace. He had the instructions 
of Congress to guide him in what America would 
claim ; and his own mind was quickly made up as 
to what England must yield. Four points were 
indispensable, — a full recognition of independence ; 
an immediate withdrawal of her troops ; a just 
settlement of boundaries, those of Canada beino" 
confined, at least, to the limits of the act of 1774 ; 
and the freedom of the fisheries. Without these 
there could be no treaty. But to make the work 
of peace sure, he suggested, as equally useful to 
both parties, four other concessions, the most im- 
portant of which were the giving up of Canada, 
and securing equal privileges in English and Irish 
ports to the ships of both nations. The four ne- 
cessary articles became the real basis of the treaty. 

John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurena 



20() LECTURE VI. 

were joined with liiiu in tlie coniniission. Jay 
was first on the gronnd, reacliing Paris in Jnne ; 
Adams came in October ; Laurens not till Novem- 
ber, when the preliminary articles were ready for 
signature. They all accepted Franklin's four arti- 
cles as the starting-]'»oint. But unfortunately they 
did not all share Franklin's well-founded confi- 
dence in the sincerity of the French government. 
Jay's mind was embittered by the tergiversations 
of Spain. Adams had not forgotten his former dis- 
agreements witli Vergennos, and hated Franklin 
so bitterly that he could liardly be prevailed upon 
to treat him with the civility which his age and po- 
sition demanded, much less with the consideration 
which the interest of his country demanded. Both 
Jay and Adams were under the influence of that 
hostility to France which prevailed as extensively 
in the Colonies as in the mother country, — a hos- 
tility which neither of them was at sufficient pains 
to conceal, although neither of them perhaps was 
fully conscious of it. It was this feeling that kept 
them both aloof from the French Minister, and 
made them so accessible to English influences. 
And it was a knowledge of this feeling which three 
years later suggested to George III. that well- 
known iusiiuiation about Adams's dislike to French 
manners, which woidd ha^-e been a scathing sar- 
casm if it had not been an inexcusable imperti- 
nence. 

The English agents availed themselves skilfully 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 207 

of those sentiments ; sowing suspicions, fostering 
doubts, and not shrinking, there is strong reason 
to suppose, from gross exaggeration and deliberate 
falsehood. The discussion of articles, like all such 
discussions, was protracted by the cftbrts of each 
party to make the best terms, and the concealing 
of real intentions in the hope of extorting greater 
concessions. But England Avas really prepared to 
yield all that America was really prepared to claim. 
France, in spite of the suspicions of Adams and 
Jay, was really sincere ; and on the 30th of No- 
vember, 1782, the preliminary articles were signed. 

Franklin's position was difficult and delicate. 
He knew the importance of peace. He knew that 
the instructions of Congress required perfect open- 
ness towards the French Minister. He believed 
that the Minister deserved, both by his past kind- 
ness and present good intentions, to be treated with 
perfect openness. But both his colleagues were 
against him. What should he do ? Refer the dif- 
ference to Congress, and meanwhile hold the coun- 
try in painful and expensive suspense ? What 
could he do but submit, as he had done through 
life, to the circumstances which he could not con- 
trol, and give the appearance of unanimity to an 
act which the good of his country required to be 
unanimous ? 

He signed the preliminaries, and submitted to 
the reproach of personal and public ingratitude as 
he had submitted to the taunts of Wedderburn. 



208 LECTURE VI. 

History has justified his confidence ; the most care- 
ful research having failed to hring to light any con- 
firmation of the suspicions of his colleagues. And 
Vergennes, though nettled for the moment, under- 
stood Franklin's position too -well to lay the act at 
his door as an expression of a real opinion. Much 
time and long discussions were still required to 
convert the preliminaries into a final treaty; for 
the complicated interests of England, France, and 
Spain were to be taken into the account. But 
each party longed for peace ; each party needed 
it ; and on the 3d of September, 1783, another 
treaty of Paris gave once more the short-lived 
though precious boon to Europe and America. 

During Franklin's residence at the court of 
France, and mainly through his influence, that 
court had advanced to Congress three millions of 
Hvres a year as a loan, had increased it to four 
millions in 1781, had the same year added six mil- 
lions as a free gift to the three millions with which 
she began, and become their security for the regu- 
lar payment of the interest upon a loan of ten 
millions to be raised in Holland.* 

Nor Avill it be inappropriate to add that before 
he sailed upon his mission to France, he called in 
all the money he could command in specie (be- 
tween three and four thousand pounds in all), and 
put it mto the public treasmy as a loan ; and that 

* In all, eighteen millions as a loan, and nine millions as a 
free <rift. 



DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 209 

while the young men, Adams and Jay, were px*o- 
vided with competent secretaries of legation, he, 
though bowed down by age and disease, and with 
ten times their work to do, was left to his own re- 
sources, and, but for the assistance of his grandson, 
would have been compelled to do it all with his 
own hand. 

It has been said that a soldier accustomed to con- 
quer with Claverhouse, when, under a new leader, 
he saw victory wavering at the decisive moment, 
exclaimed in his indignation, " O for one hour of 
Dundee ! " Might not we, as we look at the 
clouds which lower so ominously on our eastern 
horizon, exclaim with equal reason, O for one 
hour of Franklin ? 



LECTURE VII. 

THE ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

THE army of the Revolution ! What remem- 
brances this name awakens ! What fireside 
tales, charms of childhood, stimulants of youth, 
fanning the flame of young ambition, kindling the 
glow of early patriotism, come crowding upon our 
memories as we utter these words. Many of us 
grew up in the midst of men who could tell us all 
about that army; who could tell us how the red- 
coats looked as they marched with measured tread, 
to the note of bugle and drum, up the grassy slope 
of Bunker Hill, and what a gleam of exultation 
flashed along the American line, when, through 
the veil of smoke, the broken ranks Avere seen rush- 
ing madly towards the shore, to the sharp, quick 
rino; of the American guns ; who remembered the 
sad march through the Jerseys ; who had felt the 
keen December blasts of Trenton, and the keener 
tooth of hunger on the bleak hillside of Valley 
Forge ; who had looked upon the face of Wash- 
ington in gloom, and peril, and triumph. These, 



ARIifY OF THE REVOLUTION. 211 

for many of us, were the old men of our youth, 
men with a wooden leg, or a single arm, or a sin- 
gle eye ; some of them M'ith a deep scar on their 
faces ; all with somethino; about them that save 
them a mysterious power over our young im- 
aginations, and bore witness to their tales of hard- 
ship and danger. But now that questions crowd 
upon us there are none left to answer them. 
Now, when often a single word would solve per- 
plexing doubts and set a whole controversy at rest, 
the thousand lips that once might have uttered it 
are sealed forever. Gone, nearly all gone ! the 
few that remain, eight or ten at the utmost, al- 
ready more than half hidden by the deepening 
shadows of the grave. Temper the chilling dark- 
ness of those shadows Avhile yet you may, those of 
you, if any there be, who live where kind offices 
can do it ; temper it with soothing words, and 
gentle acts, and that reverence which is so grateful 
to age; for generation after generation may pass 
away before the world shall look u]Don such men 
again. 

One of the most pernicious errors concerning 
America into which tlie English government was led 
by its ill-informed informers, was, that there was 
no material there out of which an army could be 
made. A Colonel Grant, forgetting how the reg- 
ulars had run at the Monono-ahela, while a Viro;inia 
volunteer was vainly endeavoring to rally them 
and Virginia militiamen were holding the enemy 



212 LECTURE VII. 

at bay, kept Parliament on a roar with ludicrous 
pictures of American cowardice. Voice after voice 
took up the welcome tale, still believed by British 
soldiers when they marched to Concord, and not 
fully disbelieved till they had marched up Bunker 
Hill. No country, indeed, ever possessed better 
materials for an army than the thirteen Colonies ; 
hardy yeomen, robust mechanics, bold sailors, ac- 
customed from boyhood to the use of the gun, 
accustomed through half their lives to long jour- 
neys on foot or on horseback, at all seasons and in 
all weathers. Hundreds of them had fought by 
the side of English soldiers in the old French war ; 
hundreds more had fought the Indians alone in 
frontier wars. Tales of hair-breadth escapes, of 
perilous marches, of patient ambuscades, of all the 
forms of primitive warfare, were as familiar to their 
winter-evening firesides as Homer's tale of Troy to 
a Greek banquet. Washington's name had reached 
the royal closet. Putnam was already the hero 
of many stirring legends. Prescott had brought 
back from the French war a high reputation for 
gallantry. Gridley had made himself a name at 
Louisburo; as an enciineer of rare attainments. 
Pomroy had taken his place with Ward and Stark ; 
while scattered over the country were hundreds 
less known than they, but heroes, each of them, of 
his own village circle. There was not a well- 
fouoht field to which some American could not 
point with pride. There were dishonorable fields 



ARMY OF TIIH REVOIMTION. 213 

on which none but Americans Imd preserved their 
honor. It was from materials like these that 
United America was to form her army. It was 
with a full knowledoe that these materials existed 
and could be reached, that the leaders of our Rev- 
olution be<i;an tlie war. 

One grave doubt may have occurred to some of 
them. Could these men, admirable as they were 
for fi-ontier soldiers, become regular soldiers ? 
Did not their habits of social equality unfit them 
for the nice distinctions and hifiexible lines of mil- 
itary subordination ? Would they obey, as a soldier 
must obey, the man who had worked by their sides 
in the cornfield or in the workshop, and who owed 
his epaulets to tlieii' votes ? 

Here, indeed, was a difficulty inherent in the 
nature of the people, interwoven with their virtues, 
deep rooted in their manners and customs, their 
modes of action iind their modes of thought; act- 
ing unequally in diiferent parts of the country, it 
is true ; stronger in the Eastern States than in the 
Middle or Southern States ; but strono; enough in 
all to awaken serious anxiety in those who saw 
from the beginning that the war was to be fought 
with trained masses, — the victory to be won, if 
won at all, by that firm, ])atient, and resolute in- 
trepidity which nothing but discipline can ins])ire. 

But no sooner had it become evident that force 
would enter into the dis])ute than the people had 
begun to prepare themselves for their part by 



214 LECTURE VII. 

forming independent companies and organizing the 
militia. Some of these independent companies 
were drilled by British deserters ; and it is not 
one of the least characteristic traditions of the 
period that a young Rhode Island Quaker, who 
had joined one of them, not being able to procure 
a musket at home, came to Boston under the 
pretext of collecting an old debt, attended the 
morning and evening drills and parades of the 
British troops till his eye had become familiar with 
their evolutions, and carried back with him an 
English sergeant as drill-master for his company, 
and an English musket to drill with. The Avhole 
country was astir ; everywhere musterings and 
trainings, everywhere the sound of fife and drum, 
everywhere the hum of preparation. 

Massachusetts organized her militia in October, 
1774, and out of her militia came those bands of 
minute-men who did such good service during 
these anxious days. A name Avell known after- 
wards throuo-hout the lenoth and breadth of the 
land, the name of Timothy Pickering, meets us for 
the first time, in connection with a plan for drilling 
these minute-men in battalions and paying them 
out of the public treasury. Their drill was a 
social and religious exercise, followed almost always 
by a sermon and sometimes by a banquet. It is 
almost imi)ossible to read hoAV the three were 
mingled and not think of the solemn banquets of 
Homer's Greeks auspicated by sacrifice and liba- 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 215 

tion and prayer, and followed by an impetuous 
rush upon the enemy. The minister descended 
from the pulpit to take his place at the head of his 
company or even in the ranks. In the company 
of minute-men of Danvers the deacon was cap- 
tain and the minister lieutenant; for none, in those 
days, seemed to doubt that duty to God comprised 
duty to the state which secured them the privilege 
of worshipping God according to their own inter- 
pretation of his word. And thus it came to pass 
that when the alarm was sounded on the night of 
the 18th of April, thousands answered the call. 

Already, ten days before the battle of Lexing- 
ton, the Provincial Cong-ress of Massachusetts had 
resolved that an army ought to be raised, and had 
appointed delegates to ask New Hampshire, Rhode 
Island, and Connecticut to co-operate with them in 
raising it. And meeting again as soon as they 
could after the battle, children of the Puritans as 
they were, the knowledge that it was Sunday did 
not prevent them from setting themselves earnest- 
ly to their work. The army was fixed at 30,000 
men ; the Massachusetts contingent at 13,600. 

But already the army was gathering. Already 
from every town and village men of strong hearts 
and stern resolve were crowding the roads to Bos- 
ton. The plough was left in the furrow, the 
plane on the work-bench. Father and son marched 
side by side ; the preacher in the midst of his 
flock. " Numbers passed our river yesterday at the 



216 LECTURE VII. 

upper ferry," says a colonel of Newburyport, writ- 
ing for orders. " Four companies went through this 
town on their way to you : we have a party of men 
fi'om this town ; upwards of one hundred on their 
march to you." And not from Massachusetts only. 
" The ardor of our people is such that they can- 
not be kept back," writes the Committee of Cor- 
respondence from Connecticut. 

The fight was still going on when the tidings 
that the British were out reached Rhode Island. 
In the placid little hamlet of East Greenwich the 
Kentish Guards were instantly mustered, and, push- 
ing forward, had already reached the hanks of the 
Pawtucket, when an order from the Tory Gover- 
nor, Wanton, called them back. Two of them, 
recent outcasts from the Quaker meeting, held on, 
and arrived at Roxbury in time to see the inpour- 
ing of the yeomanry, and hear lips, still stern with 
the excitement of battle, describe the disastrous 
flight of the British and the eager pursuit of the 
Americans. By the 21st, twenty thousand men 
were assembled. 

O for a warning voice, a voice from history, a 
voice from philosophy, a voice from some one read 
in the contradictions of tlie human heart, to say to 
their leaders, " now is your time : make sure of 
them all for the war, the whole war, in this, the 
moment of fiery enthusiasm ; for too surely will 
the moment of discouragement follow, when the 
stout-hearted will hesitate, the faint-hearted will 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 217 

turn back." But no such voice was heard. " If 
I have not enhstmg orders immediately," writes 
Ward on the 24th, " I shall be left alone." The 
orders came : the enlistments began ; the rolls 
were filled ; but not for the war. 

Here, then, is the first, the fundamental error: 
an error never to be repaired. You will readily 
understand why men fell into this error. They 
did not believe that the war would last. They did 
not see whither the road they had entered on would 
necessarily lead them. " A few acts of firmness," 
said the King and his ministers, " and the Colonists 
will submit."* " A resolute, unanimous resist- 
ance," said the Colonists, " and the King and his 
ministers will give way." Equal short-sightedness, 
equal infatuation on both sides, and an eight years' 
war for illustration and commentary.! 

Who should command this motley army, was 
one of the first questions that presented itself; who 
should clothe and feed it, was another. Congress 
had not yet adopted it. Massachusetts had called 
for it : but still it was the army of Massachusetts, 
with the equally independent armies of New 
Hampshire, of Connecticut, and of Rhode Island, 
for voluntary auxiliaries. Gradually, as the neces- 
sity of a single head came to be felt, General Ward, 
the Massachusetts general, was accepted as com- 

* "Washington to Bryan Fairfax (Works, Vol. V. p. 248). 
t See particularly a letter of R. H. Lee to Washington (Sparks'a 
Correspondence of the Revolution, I. 52). 
10 



218 LECTURE VIL 

mander-in-chief. But eacli Colony continued to 
provide for its own men. 

It soon became evident that something more was 
required to infuse a spirit of unity into elements 
like these. There could be no strength without 
union, and of union the only adequate representa- 
tive was the Continental Congress. To induce the 
Congress to adopt the army in the name of the 
United Colonies was one of the objects towards 
which John Adams soon directed his attention. 
With the question of adoption came the question of 
commander-in-chief: and here personal ambition 
and sectional jealousies manifest themselves in ways 
whereon it would be useful to dwell. 

Washino-ton's was, of course, the first name that 
occurred to Northern and Southern men alike ; for 
it was the only name that had won a continental 
reputation. But some New-England men thought 
that this New- England army would do better ser- 
vice under a New-England commander ; and some 
Southern men were not prepared to see Washing- 
ton put so prominently forward. Then New Eng- 
land was divided against herself. Ward had warm 
advocates, and John Hancock had aspirations for 
the high place which were not always concealed 
from the keen eyes of his colleagues. Among 
Washington's opponents were some " of his own 
household," Pendleton of Virginia being the most 
persistent of them all. At last John Adams 
moved to adopt the army, and appoint a general ; 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 219 

and a few days after — Thursday, the 5th of June, 
the interval having been actively used to win over 
the little band of dissenters — Washington was 
chosen by a unanimous vote. 

The next day the organization of the army was 
reduced to a definite plan, two major-generals, 
eight brigadiers, with an adjutant-general, a quar- 
termaster-general, a paymaster-general, and a chief 
engineer. On the 19th, the number of major- 
generals was raised to four. 

It was not without new heart-burnings that these 
lists were filled up. Ward, though propitiated 
with the first place on the roll of major-generals, 
could not forget that he once cherished aspirations 
to a place still higher. John Hancock is said nev- 
er to have felt cordially towards John Adams after 
the day which had nipped his hopes of military 
glory so remorselessly in the bud. Spencer was 
unwilling to make way for Putnam ; Thomas, for 
Pomroy. Similar pretensions and similar piques 
displayed themselves as the work of organization 
went on. There were discontented colonels as 
well as discontented generals ; captains who would 
have been colonels, and lieutenants who thouo-ht 
it hard that they were not made captains. 
Harder still was it for a Massachusetts soldier to 
serve under an officer from Rhode Island ; a New- 
Hampshire soldier under an officer from Connecti- 
cut.* Hardest of all, when, at a later day, New- 

* Washington to Reed, November 8, 1775 (Sparks, III. 151) ; 
also, December 25, 1775 (Ibid., III. 214), 



220 LECTURE VII. 

Yorkers and Pennsylvanians and the aristocratic 
Marylanders, with their smart uniforms and soldier- 
ly bearing, found themselves mixed up with the 
plain democratic farmers of New England. 

It was at two o'clock in the afternoon of the 2d 
of July, that Washington reached Cambridge. 
You all know where his head-quarters were.* You 
all know what rich associations have been added 
to the associations which his nine months ffoino; in 
and out thereat have given those doors. You all 
know that words of classic eloquence have been 
written under that hallowed roof; that Washing- 

* Who will gather the mosses from this old manse, and tell 
us the story of tiie Colonial days of the wealthy Vassal, — of the 
siege of Boston days, with Washington for the central figure, — 
of the early days of the Republic, when Craigie sat at the head 
of the board, and Talleyrand was his guest, — of the later day, 
when Everett collected his little class of advanced Grecians 
around him in the southeast room on the first floor, Emerson 
among them, — when Sparks, first of our true laborers, set him- 
self to tlic illustration of our Kcvolutionary history by documents, 
and wrote the life of Washington in the very place in which 
Washington had passed some of its most memorable hours, — 
and, last of all, of the days, of "Hyperion," and "Evangeline," 
and " Hiawatha," days of earnest thought and deep feeling, which 
have found expression in imperishable verse, and of genial inter- 
course which gives us pleasant glimpses of Hawthorne and Fel- 
ton and Agassiz and the two Sumners — now, alas ! but one — and 
Lowell and Holmes and Curtis and Read and Norton and Fields, 
and of pilgrims, too, from afar off in our own broad land and 
from still farther beyond the sea, who have come to look upon 
the great poet in his home and thank him for the noble words he 
has written for the cheering and consolation of his brother man ? 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 221 

ton's own words and the record of Wasliinorton's 
acts have come thence in enduring forms to take 
their place at the head of the monuments of our 
history ; and that in the still watches of the night, 
voices of tender melody have borne from it sooth- 
ing to the sorrowful, strength to the weak, heav- 
enward aspirations to those who had looked too 
steadfastly upon earth ; lessons that have mingled 
harmoniously with the kindred teachings of Words- 
worth and Tennyson ; which have been welcomed 
by ears familiar with the lines of Goethe and Schil- 
ler ; and ever true to the universal language of 
the heart, retain their power to purify and inspire 
in the tongue of Dante and Petrarch. 

Washington's first call was for the returns of his 
army. They gave him 16,770 in all ; fit for duty, 
13,743. Never had their spirits been higher. Of- 
ficers and men seemed to catch a new enthusiasm 
from his presence ; for men know when they have 
a maa at their head, and no one doubted but what 
there was a man there now. Every day he was 
among them on his mettled charger, his command- 
ing form towering above every other in its blue 
and buff, with rich epaulets on each shoulder, a 
cockade in his hat, and by his side a sword already 
tried in battle. War had not yet put on all its 
terrors. There were some men killed from time 
to time ; there were some wounded ; breastworks 
and redoubts blocked up the fields and highways ; 
and here and there cannon looked down fi-om tlieir 



222 LECTURE VII. 

embrasures with a frown, and muskets gleamed 
menacingly above a parapet. But it was the open- 
ing of a noble epic, when the feelings are yet calm 
enough to allow the eye to dwell thoughtfully upon 
the novel beauty of the scene. 

The hills lay all round the beleaguered city as 
they lie there now. Thousands of trees that have 
long since disappeared mingled their luxuriant fo- 
liaoe in grateful shades. The green grass was 
springing abundantly ; and as the English looked 
out from their prison-house, they saw village spires, 
and cottage-roofs, and those sweet aspects of na- 
ture which fill the heart with longings for peace 
and rest. But all over those enamelled fields, and 
all over those green hillsides, were thousands of 
little fabrics suddenly called into life by tlie wants 
of the hour ; huts decked with boughs and branches ; 
huts formed of interwoven branches and thatched 
with leaves ; huts of logs, board, stone, turf, brush ; 
— melting into the landscape as if they had always 
formed a part of it, but with now and then a flash 
of steel, or a tap of a drum, or a blast of bugle 
from among them, which reminded you startlingly 
of the purpose for which they were there. In one 
part, too, ranged in the measured lines of a regu- 
lar encampment, were real tents and real marquees^ 
where the Rhode-Islanders were fast making them- 
selves real soldiers under the eye of their Quaker 
general. 

Is it hard to divine the feelings with which the 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 223 

Americans looked on their devoted town, as they 
called to mind all that she had done for their holy- 
cause, all that she had suffered rather than yield ? 
And as the morning gun waked the echoes of the 
hills, and trumpet and drum frightened the birds 
from their early song, may not some indignant son 
of the Puritans have added a war-hymn to his" 
prayers, in words, perhaps, like these ? — 

never, ne\er, never, 

Shall you bend us to your will ; 
Though your giant arm may crash us, 

We will scorn and hate you still ! 

The souls that we inherit 

Fear not the conqueror's chain; 
However firm your fetters. 

We will tear them off again ! 

Where'er a mountain rears its head 

We '11 fight like mountaineers ; 
Where'er a valley opes its arms, 

We'll gird it with our spears. 

On every river-bank we '11 rear 

A bulwark of the slain ; 
And fire and sword shall guard our homes. 

Till we come back again. 

On, then, to Freedom's battle ! 

Gray sii-es and striplings, — all ! 
Free homes shall welcome those who live, 

And angels those who fall. 

Summer wore aw^ay. Autumn came with chil- 
ling, precursory blasts, soon to grow chiller as they 



224 LECTURE VIL 

flew over the snow. Tlie leaves withered on win- 
dow and doorway ; tlie thatch fell from the roof. 
Men's hearts fainted within them. They remem- 
bered their cheerful firesides, their huskings and 
merry-makings ; how pleasant it had been in othei 
days to fill up the barn and crib till the corn and 
the grain ran over ; how the cider had flowed in 
rivulets from their apple-presses. They bethought 
them too of the wives and children that looked to 
them for food and protection, and they sighed for 
home. Had there been battles and marches to 
vary the scene, they might have found relief in 
the excitement. But this dull monotony of camp- 
life fell with double weight upon men accustomed 
to work all day in the occupations of their choice, 
and ffo home at nio;ht to a cheerful fire and abun- 
dant table. The poetry was gone ; the hard, stern 
prose was there, never harder, never sterner, than 
when strong men suffer want and privation to- 
gether. As winter advanced their sufferings in- 
creased. They suffered from want of clothing, 
and still more from want of wood. Trees were cut 
down, fences pulled up, everything that could be 
made to burn was converted into fuel ; and still, 
hundreds were compelled to eat their food raw. 
And to complete the picture, I must reluctantly 
add that those who had wood, or clothing, or pro- 
visions to sell, asked the highest prices and de- 
manded the promptest payment. 

From the beo-innintT Washino;ton had called the 



AR3IY OF THE REVOLUTION. 225 

attention of Congress to the condition of the army, 
and as winter approached his calls grew more ur- 
gent. He had found it impossible to induce either 
officers or soldiers to subscribe the Articles of War. 
He had been compelled to assume the responsibil- 
ity of settling the rank of the officers, and number- 
ino; the regiments. The terms of enlistment of 
the Rhode Island and Connecticut troops expired 
on the 1st of December. None were bound be- 
yond the 1st of January. Yet it was not till the 
middle of October that a committee of Congress 
came to Cambridge and set itself seriously to the 
task of reorganization. The subject had already 
been considered in a council of war, and the coun- 
cil and committee agreed in fixing the number of 
regiments at twenty-six, exclusive of riflemen and 
artillery ; each regiment to consist of eight compa- 
nies, and the whole to compose an army of 20,372 
men to face the English in Boston. 

It was evident that a portion of the new army 
must be drawn from the old. But would men 
with such experience of war as our soldiers were 
now going through be willing to go through it 
again ? 

It was equally evident that every enlistment 
ought to be made for the war, and every nerve 
strained to form a permanent army. " If Congress 
had given a large bounty, and engaged the soldiery 
during the war," wrote General Greene in Decem- 
ber, " the continent would be much securer, and 
10* o 



226 LECTURE VII. 

the measure cheaper in the end." But Congress 
was still groping in the dark, wasting time and 
energy in discussions and half-measures, — the un- 
conscious victim of two fatal errors, — sectional jeal- 
ousies and the dread of a standing army. An 
army raised, paid, clothed, fed, disciplined, and gov- 
erned in the name of Congress, seemed to some a 
dangerous encroachment upon State rights ; to 
others, a dangerous weapon in the hands of a suc- 
cessful general. " If our enemies prevail, which 
our dissensions may occasion," Avrote Governor 
Trumbull of Connecticut, " our jealousies will then 
appear frivolous, and all our disputed claims of no 
value to either side." " The fate of kingdoms de- 
pends upon the just improvement of critical mo- 
ments," wrote General Greene. ..." The temper 
and feelings of men can be wrought up to a certain 
pitch, and then, like all transitory things, they sick- 
en and subside. This is the time for a wise leg-is- 
lator to avail himself of the advantage which the 
favorable disposition of the people gives him, to 
execute whatever sound policy dictates. It is not 
in the province of mortals to reduce human events 
in politics to a certainty. It is our duty to provide 
the means to obtain our ends, and leave the event 
to Him who is the all-wise governor and disposer 
of the universe." Many, too, were terrified at 
the expense. " What signifies our being fright- 
ened at the expense ? " wrote General Greene ; 
" if we succeed, we gain all ; if we are conquered, 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 227 

we lose all." And speaking of Colonial jealousies, 
" It grieves me that sueli jealousies should prevail. 
If they are nourished, they will sooner or later sap 
the foundations of the Union and dissolve the con- 
nection. God in mercy avert so dreadful an evil." 

But while some clearer minds saw things in 
their true light, the public mind had not yet been 
thoroughly awakened to a perception of duties or 
responsibilities, and Congress seldom ventured far 
in advance of the public mind. Therefore the 
new army, like the old, was enlisted for a limited 
period. 

Fortunately, the feeling in the country was still 
strong. In December, when the Connecticut troops 
went home " by shoals," the people on the road 
refused to give them food or shelter. Many of the 
old soldiers were ready to enlist for another year, 
but asked a short furlough before they returned to 
duty. Never were Washington and his generals 
less to be envied than during the autumn and win- 
ter of 1775, with an old army to disband and a 
new army to enroll within point-blank shot of an 
enemy perfectly armed and disciplined, and led by 
experienced officers.* Howe's blindness is almost 
incredible. But Washington's calm self-possession 
is sublime. 

All through October and November the work of 

* For some of the difficulties referred to, see Washington's 
letter to the President of Congress. (Sparks, III. 156 j Corre- 
spondence of llev., I. 82.) 



228 LECTURE VII. 

enlistment went on ; sometimes so briskly as to 
awaken strong hopes ; sometimes so slowly as to 
excite serious apprehensions. Dissatisfied officers 
discouraged enlistments. Important as it was to 
conciliate the good will of the old troops, the dearth 
of arms was so great, that on dismissing the men 
it was found necessary to retain their arms without 
regard to the distinction between public and pri- 
vate property. Often, too, the price set upon them 
by the public appraisers fell below the original cost. 
And of the arms thus hardly got, half were mere 
fowling-pieces of different bores, and nearly all of 
them without bayonets. 

At last December came. The militia was called 
in to take the place of the disbanded troops. Ev- 
erything was confusion and disorder. But in spite 
of confusion and disorder and discouragement, 
Washington went calmly on, the old army was 
dissolved, and by the beginning of the year a new 
army had taken its place. 

And thus ended the first army of the Revolution. 
Hurriedly formed in an hour of intense excitement, 
composed principally of farmers and mechanics, 
men of some means and accustomed to labor, it 
had never acquired much skill of evolution or 
much exactness of discipline ; it had fought no 
battles after Bunker Hill, had made no marches or 
expeditions ; but it had kept a veteran army, sup- 
ported by a large fleet, closely penned up for eight 
months within the limits of a small town ; had 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 229 

effectually cut off their supplies and rendered their 
superiority of equipments and discipline useless ; 
and when it passed away, it contributed a large 
body of its best and ablest men as a nucleus for 
the formation of the army of 1776. 

This army of '76, with reinforcements of militia 
and additional regiments from the Middle States,' 
was the army with which Washington made his 
wonderful retreat from Long Island and fought the 
battle of White Plains. Sickness, battle, detach- 
ments, desertion, expiration of service, had sadly 
thinned its ranks when it made its memorable 
retreat through the Jerseys. But it surprised the 
Hessians at Trenton ; defeated the British at 
Princeton ; and accomplished those brilliant move- 
ments which, even without Yorktown, would have 
been sufficient to establish Washington's claim 
to military genius of the highest order. Nor 
should it be forgotten that at the most critical mo- 
ment of the campaign, when the terms of service 
of the New-England regiments was about to ex- 
pire, instead of marching off as they might have 
done " to the music of the enemy's cannon," 
they engaged for six weeks of winter service and 
stood by their General until he had taken up his 
strong position at Morristown and the enemy had 
gone into winter quarters. 

During the whole of this momentous year 
Washington had been exerting all his influence to 
convince Congress of the impossibility of carrying 



230 LECTURE VII. 

on sucli a war as that which they were engaged in, 
by means of mihtia and troops enlisted for so sliort 
a pei'iod as to make them ahuost as unsusce])tible 
of disci])line and as nnfit for the execution of ex- 
tensive ])lans as the militia itself. Forty-seven 
thousand Continentals and twenty-seven thousand 
militia had been in service during the year ; and 
yet on the -d of January, 1777, when he began 
liis night niarcli upon Princeton, five thousand men, 
more than half of them militia, were all that he 
could nmster. It seems strange to us, o.s we look 
back u])on these events, that, with such work be- 
fore it, Congress could have hesitated a moment 
about the proper way of doing it. Tlie British 
ivgulars Avere now backed by German regulars, 
men trained in the strictest school of military dis- 
cipline. It was only by disciplined men that such 
men could be met upon eipial terms; and discipline 
is the work ol' time. When the American recruits 
came in, they had barely time to learn their places 
in the ranks before they were called upon for active 
service. And by the time that they had made 
themselves familiar Avith the duties of a cam]) and 
learnt the first rudiments of military evolutions, 
their term of enlistment was ended. The militia 
brought Avith them not only the ignorance of re- 
cruits, but an aversion to every form of restraint. 
Accustomed at home to come and go. as they 
pleased, they could not see why then' freedom of 
action shoidd be restrained in camp. Accustomed 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 231 

to use their own powder freely, tliey made free with 
the powder of Congress. Inexperienced in tlie 
details of camp life, they consumed more food and 
wasted more su[)plies tlum W(nild liave supported 
twice tlieir number of regular troops for twice the 
time. And when their time was out, they seldom 
liesitated to sacrifice the most important pubHc in- 
terests to their individual rights. Uncertain in bat- 
tle, fighting at times with the boldness of veterans, 
running at times before they came within gunshot 
of the enemy, they were equally unreliable for 
complicated movements or bold assaults ; nor was 
it the least of their defects that in serving with 
regulars they communicated to them the conta- 
gion of their own irregular and improvident habits. 
If there is a lesson perpetually inculcated in the 
letters of Washington and his best officers, it is the 
folly and extravagance, the waste of property and 
the waste of life, of carrying on a war by means of 
temporary levies and raw recruits. 

Congress saw its error, l)ut saw it too late. The 
favorable moment M'as past, and past beyond recall. 
The new committee came prepared to adopt all 
Washington's plans, — but these plans could no 
longer be carried out. They resolved to raise an 
army of GO, 000 men ; divided not by regiments, 
but battalions; and shortly afterwards, at Wash- 
ington's earnest request, sixteen battalions of 
foot, with three regiments of artillery, three thou- 
sand light horse, and a corps of engineers, were 



232 LECTURE VII. 

added. It was also resoh^ed that the enlistments 
should be made for the wai', and to hasten them, 
a bounty of twenty dollars on enlisting, and a 
grant of a hundred acres of land at the close of 
the war, were offered to privates, and proportion- 
ate grants of land to officers. But it was soon 
found that men were unwilling to enlist for the 
war, and accordingly an optional term of three 
years without the hundred acres of land was 
agreed upon. But now three years seemed long. 
The rolls filled up slowly, very slowly, and this 
grand army was little more than an army upon 
paper. 

It was found necessary to take men upon their 
own terms. The army still continued to be a 
body of men brought together for unequal periods, 
some for nine months, some for three, some for a 
year, some for three years, and a few for the war ; 
with a discipline so imperfect, that to eyes accus- 
tomed to Prussian discipline it seemed anarchy ; 
with such irregularity of administration, that it was 
impossible to form any idea of its numbers from its 
muster-rolls or the reports of its officers ; so imper- 
fectly clad, that out of 9,000 men there were at 
one time 3,989 unable to go upon duty for want 
of clothing ; and so imperfectly armed, that " mus- 
kets, carbines, fowling-pieces, and rifles were to 
be seen in the same company," and these too for 
the most part " covered with rust, and with many " 
from which not a single shot could be fired with 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 233 

safety.* A regiment might contain any number 
of platoons, from three to twenty-one ; sometimes 
it was stronger than a brigade ; and one instance 
is recorded in which there were but thirty men in 
a regiment, and one man in a company, and that 
man a corporaL Manoeuvres were out of the 
question. The whole drill consisted of the manual 
exercise, and for this every colonel had a sys- 
tem of his own. The only point upon which they 
were all am-eed was on niarchino- in Indian file. 

But if the changes made by Congress failed to 
reach these evils, they were, with the exception of 
the deep-rooted evil of short enlistments, and defi- 
cient clothing, all reached and all corrected by the 
knowledge and energy of one man. Of this man, 
Baron Steuben, I shall have occasion to speak 
more fully in another lecture. But his name 
meets us here as the author of that decisive revo- 
lution which converted the motley band that had 
crouched more like beasts than like men in the 
huts of Valley Forge into the trained soldiers who 
manoeuvred and fought wnth the precision and 
firmness of veterans on the bloody field of Mon- 
mouth. The spring of 1778 was the decisive 
epoch in the history of the American army. All 
the objections that had been drawn from the na- 
ture of our institutions and the habits of our peo- 
ple were fiilly met. It was seen that they could 

* Important details upon this subject may be found in Kapp'a 
Life of Steuben. 



234 LECTURE VII. 

submit to discipline witliout sacrificing their inde- 
pendence, and learn to move like machines without 
impairing their energy of will. " You say to your 
soldier," wrote Steuben to a Prussian officer, " Do 
this, and he doeth it. But I am obliged to say to 
mine. This is the reason why you ought to do 
that, and then he does it." Henceforth we begin 
to find uniformity of discipline, uniformity of drill, 
uniformity of manoeuvres ; a system of reports 
which enabled a commander to see at once how 
many men he could count upon for active service ; 
a system of inspection which saved the coun- 
try $ 600,000 in arms and accoutrements alone. 
The ranks, it is true, still remained thin. The 
army in the field still fell far short of the army 
voted by Congress. The men were still badly 
clothed. Officers might still, perhaps, be seen, 
as they had been seen at Valley Forge, " mounting 
guard in a dressing-gown made of an old woollen 
blanket or bed-cover ! " But officers and men 
knew their duty and did it. Without ceasing to 
be citizens, they became soldiers ; proud of their 
regiment, attached to their profession ; accepting 
without a murmur the " iron despotism " which 
Washington himself had declared to be the only 
system by which an army could be governed ; and 
so thoroughly trained, even in complicated ma- 
noeuvres, that Steuben, the severest of judges, de- 
clared himself willing to put them, in every thing 
but clothing, side by side with the veterans of 
France. 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 235 

The wliole number of continental soldiers era- 
ployed during the war was 231,1)71, of whom 
Massachusetts alone furnished G7,90T. The v/liole 
number of militia called into service has been 
estimated at 56,163, although there are good 
grounds for believing that it was somewhat larger. 

I have already alluded to the privations and 
sufferings of the army of the Revolution. It is 
difficult to speak of them without, at least, an ap- 
pearance of exaggeration : and yet the testimony 
is so uniform, the details are so minute and so 
authentic, that the strongest coloring would fall 
short of the dark reality. These sufferings began 
with the beginning of the war, and continued to 
the end of it. During the first winter, soldiers 
thought it hard that they often had nothing to cook 
their food with ; bvit they found before its close 
that it was harder still to have nothing to cook. 
Few Americans had ever known what it was to 
suffer for want of clothing ; but thousands, as the 
war went on, saw their garments falling by piece- 
meal from around them, till scarce a shred re- 
mained to cover their nakedness. They made 
long marches without shoes, staining the frozen 
ground with the blood from their feet. They 
fought battles with guns that were hardly safe to 
bear a half-charge of powder. They fought, or 
marched, or worked on intrenchments, all day, 
and laid them down at night with but one blanket 
to three men. And thus in rags, without shoes, 



236 LECTURE VIL 

often witliout bread, they fought battles and won 
campaigns. They marched from the banks of the 
Hudson to the banks of the Brandywme, — hung 
upon the flank of the victorious British ; and when 
the enemy thought themselves firmly in posses- 
sion of Philadelphia, fell suddenly upon tlieir right 
wing at Germantown, and nearly cut off half their 
army. They marched from the Hudson to the 
southern extremity of Virginia, and took Cornwal- 
lis prisoner in Yorktown. They crossed rivers on 
the ice of northern winters, and made campaigns 
under the sun of southern summers. In the be- 
ginning, they had been paid with some degree of 
regularity ; but as financial embarrassments in- 
creased, they found it almost impossible to get 
their pay even in the almost worthless continental 
paper. As they looked forward to the continua- 
tion of the war, how often must their hearts have 
sunk within them at the anticipation of all the 
suffering it would bring with it. As tliey looked 
forward to the return of peace, what fears and mis- 
givings must have assailed them at the thought of 
going pennyless, and often, too, with constitutions 
undermined by privation and disease, to look for 
new homes and new means of support in a world 
to which they had become strangers. 

The condition of the officers Avas scarcely better 
than that of the men. They, too, had suffered 
cold and hunger ; they, too, had been compelled to 
do duty w'ithout sufficient clothing; to march and 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 237 

watch and fight without sufficient food. We are 
told of a dinner at which no officer was admitted 
who had a whole pair of pantaloons ; and of all the 
invited there was not one who did not fully estab- 
lish his claims to admission. 

And yet the history of this army contains the 
record of only three partial mutinies : the revolt of 
the Pennsylvania line in January, 1781, followed 
in a few days by that of the New Jersey line ; and 
the attempt to coerce Congress by another body 
of Pennsylvanians in 1783 ; — for the transient 
outbreaks of one or two regiments can hardly be 
termed a mutiny. The Pennsylvania line claimed 
their pay and discharge upon the ground that they 
had enlisted for three years, and that the three 
years had expired ; and, even in the heat of the 
revolt, denounced and gave up the emissaries whom 
the British commander had sent among them to 
buy them back to England. All of these revolts 
were repressed without actual collision. The spirit 
of subordination to an authority of their own cre- 
ating was too deeply rooted in the American mind 
to be forgotten long, even when men felt them- 
selves most aggrieved. 

Not that there were not vices and vicious men 
in the army : not that drunkenness, and profanity, 
and the other forms of evil which prevail where 
many men are gathered together and the purify- 
ing influences of domestic life suspended, were not 
to be found in some measure among these men 



238 LECTURE VII. 

also : but neither could they have borne what they 
bore, or done what they did, if by far the greater 
part of them had not been as sound at heart as 
they were strong in will. 

To the officers, Congress, after much discussion 
and delays that savored equally of impolicy and 
ingratitude, had voted half-pay for life. It is 
painful to think of the long opposition to the claims 
of men who, besides risking then' lives in battle 
and their health in the hardships of camp, were 
necessarily cut off, during their most vigorous years, 
from every other method of providing for them- 
selves or their families. To some minds the army 
seems always to have presented itself as an object 
of apprehension. In strengthening it against the 
enemy they were still disturbed by the fear of 
strengthening it against the people. Foi-getting 
that the men who composed it came directly from 
the body of citizens, and must sooner or later 
return to it, they feared that the ties by which 
long service would bind them to their officers 
might prove stronger than the ties by which they 
were bound to their famihes. History troubled 
them with visions of Csesars and Cromwells ; and 
like too many who misapply her lessons, they 
failed to see how utterly unlike were the " Thir- 
teen Colonies" to the dregs of Romukis or the 
England of Charles the First. They erred where 
sensible men daily err, by applying to one class of 
circumstances the principles which they have de- 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 239 

duced from a class radically different. The idea 
of building up a standing army in a country of vast 
extent, thinly peopled, sturdily independent, too 
strongly attached to their local institutions to be 
willing to sacrifice them to the certain prospect of 
immediate advantage and under the stimulant of 
immediate danger, accustomed to self-government, 
and jealously sensitive to the least encroachment 
upon their rights, ought never to have found ad- 
mission into a sound mind. Yet it not only found 
admission to some, but took such deep root there- 
in as to make them systematically unjust towards 
the best and most faithful advocates of their com- 
mon liberties. It was, in a great measure, this 
feeling, combined with a morbid attachment to 
State rights, or rather an imperfect conception of 
the vital importance of a real union, that delayed 
the formation of an army for the war till the mo- 
ment for forming it cheaply and readily was past. 
It was this feeling which, under the plausible 
show of strengthening the dependence of the army 
upon Congress, kept the officers in much feverish 
anxiety about the rules of promotion. It was this 
feeling which led John Adams to talk seriously 
about an annual appointment of generals ; and 
both the Adamses to draw nigh to Gates as a man 
who, in some impossible contingency, was to be 
set up against Washington. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that to minds 
tinged with these suspicions, the idea of half-pay 



240 LECTURE VII. 

for life should seem fraught with serious danger, 
or that the men who entertained them should have 
opposed, as an invasion of popular rights, what in 
the light of impartial history seems a mere act 
of justice. It was not till the ten'ible winter of 
Valley Forge had been passed through, and when 
Washington saw himself upon the point of losing 
many of his best and most experienced officers, 
that a promise of half-pay for seven years to all 
who should serve through the war was wruncr 
from a reluctant Congress. It took two years 
more of urgent exhortation and stern experience 
to overcome the last scruples and secure a vote of 
half-pay for life. 

But the opponents of this measui*e were not dis- 
posed to submit tamely to their defeat. The ques- 
tion Avas soon revived, both in Congress and out 
of Congress, in the army and in the country. The 
letters of the time are filled with it, and the nearer 
the approach of peace, the more anxiously did the 
army watch the movements of their adversaries. 
The great underlying question of a strong central 
government, or virtually independent State gov- 
ernments, came out more and more clearly. Ham- 
ilton, now in Congress, and taught by his long 
experience as Washington's aid the weakness of 
relying for justice upon the action of individual 
States, was for fimding the whole pubhc debt and 
making just provisions for the payment of the army. 
The advocates of State rights were for throwing 
the army upon their respective States. 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION. 241 

A new idea was gaining ground ; the commu- 
tation of lialf-pay for life for five years' full pay, 
which many of the officers preferred, as giving 
them something in hand to enter upon the world 
with anew. It was while all minds were agitated 
by these exciting questions, and thoughtful men 
were glancing anxiously towards the future, that 
that stirring appeal to the army appeared which is 
known in history as the " Newburg Letters." You 
all know the history of this grave event. You all 
know how adroitly and how wisely Washington par- 
ried the blow, and drew from men smarting under 
a sense of past and present wrongs a declaration 
of unshaken confidence in the justice of Congress. 

And now Congress, resolving to be just, voted 
to commute the half-pay for life for five years' full 
pay, and secure it by certificates bearing interest 
at six per cent. When the sum was calculated it 
was found to amount to five millions of dollars. 
But of these five millions, " the price," as Wash- 
ington called it, " of their blood and your inde- 
pendence," the officers themselves, pressed by 
urgent need to part with their certificates for what- 
ever they would bring, received in the end but a 
small part; the greater part going, as usual, to 
those who had been making money for themselves 
while these men had been fighting for their country. 

And now, too, the army was to be disbanded ; 
not indeed, solemnly, as became a grateful people, 
but stealthily and by degrees, as if the nation were 

H P 



242 LECTURE VII. 

afraid to look their deliverers in the face. All 
through the spring and summer of 1783, furloughs 
were gi-anted freely, and the ranks gradually 
thinned. Then, on the 18th of October, a final 
proclamation was issued, fixing the 3d of Novem- 
ber " for their absolute discharge." On the 2d of 
November, Washington issued his final orders to 
his troops from Rocky Hill, near Princeton. On 
the 3d they were disbanded. There was no for- 
mal leave-taking. Each regiment, each company, 
went as it chose. Men who had stood side by 
side in battle, who had shared the same tent in 
summer, the same hut in winter, parted never to 
meet ao;ain. Some still had homes, and therefore 
definite hopes. But hundreds knew not whither 
to go. Their four months' pay, the only part of 
their country's indebtedness which they had re- 
ceived, was not sufficient to buy them food or shel- 
ter long, even when it had not been necessarily 
pledged before it came into their hands. They 
had lost the habits of domestic life, as they had 
Ions foregone its comforts. Strono; men were seen 
weeping like children ; men who had borne cold 
and hunger in winter camps, and faced death on 
the battle-field, shrunk from this new form of trial. 
For a few days the streets and taverns were 
crowded. For weeks soldiers Avere to be seen on 
every road, or lingering bewildered about public 
places like men who were at a loss what to do with 
themselves. Tliere were no ovations for them as 



ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION 2 A3 

they came back toil-worn before their time, to the 
places which had once known them ; no ringing 
of bells, no eager opening of hospitable doors. 
The country was tired of the war, tired of the 
sound of fife and drum, anxious to get back to sow- 
ing and reaping, to buying and selling, to town 
meetings and general elections. Cong-ress was no 
longer King, no longer the recognized expression 
of a common want, the venerated embodiment of 
a common hope. Political ambition looked for ad- 
vancement nearer home. Professional ambition 
returned to its narrow circle. Everything that 
belonged to the State resumed its importance ; ev- 
erything that belonged to the general government 
lost its importance. The army shared the common 
fate, gradually melting into the mass of citizens, 
some going back to the plough, some to the work- 
bench ; all, but those whom disease and wounds had 
utterly disabled, resuming by degrees the habits 
and avocations of peace. But in many a town and 
country inn you would long have found men with 
scars and mutilated limbs seated around the winter 
fire, and telling stories of the war. In many a 
farm-house you might long have seen an old mus- 
ket on the hooks over the mantel-piece, or an old 
sword hanging by its leathern belt from the wall. 
In many a field, and by many a wayside, there 
were mounds and crumbling ruins ; in many a 
churchyard there were little green hillocks with 
unsculptured stones at head and foot, to tell the 



244 LECTURE VII. 

new generation where their flithers had fought, had 
encamped, had buried their dead. 

It was long before the country awoke to a con- 
sciousness of its ingratitude towards these brave 
men. The history of our pension bills is scarcely 
less humiliating than the history of the relations 
between the army and the Congress of the Revo- 
lution. Their claims were disputed inch by inch. 
Money which should have been given cheerfully 
as a rio-hteous debt, was doled ovit with reluctant 
hand as a degrading charity. There was no pos- 
sible form of objection that was not made by men 
who owed the opportunity of discussing the sol- 
diers' claims to the fi'eedom which these soldiers 
had won for them with their blood. Never did 
Daniel Webster display a higher sense of the re- 
sponsibilities of legislation, than in his defence of 
the bill for the relief of the survivors of the army 
of the Revolution. Thank God that something 
was done for these men before they had all passed 
away ! Thank God tliat some portion of the stain 
was effaced from our annals I Heaven grant that 
the feeling whence it sprang may be forever root- 
ed out from our national character, and that, Avhen 
the question of national gratitude which the pres- 
ent war is preparing for us shall be brought to the 
door of our national council, it may be met in a 
manner more worthy of a just and enlightened 
people ! 



LECTURE VIII. 

CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 

• 

" rilHE success of a war," says one of the great- 
JL est masters of the art, " depends m a great 
measure upon the abiHty of the general, upon his 
knowledge of the country, and the skill with which 
he takes advantage of the ground, both by pre- 
venting the enemy from taking favorable positions, 
and by choosing for himself those which are best 
suited to his designs." " The talent of a general," 
says Jomini, " consists in two things very different 
in themselves : to know how to judge and combine 
operations ; and to know how to carry them out." 
And thus the history of a war becomes, to a 
certain extent, an individual history, — the history 
of the genius and success, or of the errors and fail- 
ures, of successful and unsuccessful generals. In 
the second Punic war ILtnnibal tills more than 
half the canvas. In the Seven Years' War we 
pass hastily over every other name to concentrate 
our attention upon Frederic. And in the long 
European wars from 1796 to 1815, — from the 
battle of Montenotte to the battle of Waterloo, — 



246 LECTURE VIII. 

we instinctively refex' every great event to the 
genius and the ambition of Napoleon. 

The war of our Revolution forms no exception 
to this tendency of the human mind to make indi- 
viduals the repi'esentatives of ideas and events. 
As the page of our history fills up, names that 
were once familiar are cast into the shade ; and 
acts in which the concurrence of many hands and 
many minds was reqmred, gra'dually become asso- 
ciated with the master minds which inspired and 
directed them all. Washington is the first name 
that occurs to us in connection with our military 
history, as it is the first in our civil history ; and 
wherever our history comes in as a chapter in that 
of the world, it will, for the period to which it be- 
longs, be almost the only one. Next, for the im- 
portance of the events with which they are asso- 
ciated, though with very different degrees of merit, 
come Gates and Greene. Thus, whenever we see 
the main army, we find Washington directing all 
its movements. The great historical importance 
of the Northern army was derived from the defeat 
of Burgoyne ; and with this. Gates has succeeded 
m connecting his name, almost to the exclusion of 
Schuyler and Arnold, by whom most of the real 
work was done. The reconquest of the South in 
the brilliant campaign of 1780 — 81 belongs exclu- 
sively ib Greene. 

If we would form a correct estimate of the mili- 
tary genius of Washington, we must study his 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 247 

eight campaigns as a connected and harmonious 
whole ; the result of a careful study of his own sit- 
uation, a just appreciation of the character and 
resources of his enemy, and a thorough knowledge 
of those fundamental principles which, though not 
yet set forth in any treatise upon the art of war, 
had inspired the combinations of every great com- 
mander from Ca3sar to Frederic. I know that it 
has been common to underrate Washington as a 
soldier ; to speak of him as a man of sound sense 
surrounded by men better inspired than himself, 
whose advice he always took before he ventured 
to act. I know that the original suggestion of his 
most brilhant movements has been claimed for 
other men, and that he has often been represented 
as deliberating; and discussino- under circumstances 
which admitted of no deliberation and called for 
no discussion. But history teaches us that, in 
situations like his, none but great men know how 
to take counsel, and that the mind which gathers 
around it the master minds of its age, and through 
a series of years, and under great diversities of 
circumstances, uses their best faculties as its own, 
must, in some things, be superior to them all. 

I know, too, that the campaigns of the Revolu- 
tion have none of that physical grandeur which 
overwhelms the imagination in the movements of 
vast masses. The loss of the allied armies at the 
battle of Leipsic, was greater than twice the popu- 
lation of New York city in 1744 ; and the French 



248 LECTURE VIII. 

lost fifteen thousand more than they. But there 
is a moral grandeur about Trenton with its two 
officers and two or three men wounded, and two 
jfrozen to death, which gives a glow — or, as the 
poet terms it, a "kindling majesty" — to our con- 
ceptions, which none but moral causes can awaken. 
And even as illustrations of the art of war, we 
shall find that the principles applied in these cam- 
paigns — the principles which for seven years kept 
open the communication between the Eastern and 
Middle Provinces by the line of the Hudson, 
which kept an ill-armed and half-organized army 
year after year within striking distance of the en- 
emy, harassing where it could not openly attack, 
retardino; and embarrassing- where it could not 
openly . oppose, and often attacking and opposing 
with a skill and vigor which astonished its ad- 
versaries and revived the drooping spirits of its 
friends — are the same principles by which all great 
armies have been moved and all the most brilliant 
achievements of war's most brilliant masters per- 
formed. Never did a oeneral chancre his line of 
operations more promptly or with more effect than 
Washington changed his between sunset and mid- 
night of the 2d of January, 1777. Never was an 
enemy more effectually deceived by skilful manoeu- 
vring than Clinton in New York, or more effectu- 
ally taken in the snare than Cornwallis in York- 
town in the autumn of 1781. There is a way of 
doing things upon a small scale which reveals the 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 249 

existence of capacity to do them upon a large scale, 
as plainly as the action itself would have done. 
And the general who carried a nation of less than 
three millions through a successful contest of eight 
years with the most powerful nation of modern 
times, may justly claim a place among great 
generals. 

The campaign of 1775 was a campaign of prep- 
aration and organization. Much of Washington's 
time was necessarily given to the study of his ma- 
terials. He had the character of his officers to study, 
— strangers, almost all of them, and most of them 
with the barest tincture of military science. He had 
the character of the people to study, and to find the 
way of establishing himself firmly in their confi- 
dence and affections. He had the country itself to 
study, in order to form a calm estimate of its spirit 
and its resources, and to devise the most effectual 
way of guiding the one and drawing out the other. 
And, meanwhile, he had to keep close watch upon 
his enemy, harass him, annoy him, cut off his sup- 
plies, weary him with false alarms, and by a men- 
acing aspect keep up the appearance of strength 
even when most wanting in all the elements of 
which military strength consists. His army was 
what Frederic has described as one with which a 
general will hardly dare to look his enemy in the 
face, — badly exercised and badly disciplined. 

There was no room here for the display of en- 
terprise. Prudence, caution, self-control, were 
11* 



'250 LECTURE VIII. 

■what the situation required. An eagle eye to 
watch, but a strong will to keep down impatience 
and wait for the moment of action. To confine 
the English army within the limits of Boston and 
Charlestown until he should be able to compel it 
to surrender or evacuate, — such was the problem. 

The fii-st part of the solution tilled the summer 
and winter of 1775 — 76, and was accomplished by 
blockade. With less than fifteen thousand efticient 
men, he held over ten miles of circmnvallation. It 
was long before he could get cannon or mortar's 
enough to fire upon the enemy's works ; in August 
he had only powder enough to furnish twenty-tive 
rounds to a man, and not enough to serve his small 
park of artillery a day. He lacked sadly, too, good 
engineers, men who could make up by science for 
the want of strength, and turn eveiy favorable 
feature of the ground to the best advantage. 

But the o;round was used to the best advantage. 
The access to the city was cut off" by a connected 
line of works. The approaches to the works were 
cai'efiilly guarded. Ploughed Hill, Winter Hill, 
Prospect Hill, were covered with intrenchments. 
From the Mystic to Dorchester Xeck, men kept 
close guard from morning to night, from night to 
morning, behind breastworks and redoubts, from 
which every gun could have been aimed with the 
same deadly precision which had twice broken the 
ranks of England's best soldiers fi'om the half-fin- 
ished redoubt of Bunker Hill. Gage looked out 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 251 

upon them from Beacon Hill, and feared to repeat 
the bloody experiment of the 17th of June. Howe 
looked upon them and felt that he could not atibrd 
the blood it would require to take them. 

Every day Washington was on the lines, among 
the men, gradually infusing the spirit of order and 
subordination by showing them that his eye was 
ever upon them. From time to time there was 
cannonading from the nearest points ; now and 
then the surprise of a picket, or a menace of at- 
tack. From time to time detachments met on the 
islimds of the bay, — the English coming for hay 
or cattle, the Americans to prevent them. To sol- 
diers like ours, these skirmishes had all the appear- 
ance of real battles, and a successful skirmish in- 
spirited them as much as a great victory. "• Heap 
up small successes," says Frederic, " and their sum 
will be a great success." More than once Wash- 
ington would have ventured upon a general attack, 
but his officers thought the hazard too great, and 
the time had not yet come for overruling the de- 
cision of a council of war. At last, when all his 
preparations were completed and he felt himself 
strong enough to strike a decisive blow, he took 
possession of Dorchester Heights and I'ortitied them 
in a single night. AVhen the English admiral saw 
the American guns looking down upon his ships, 
he saw that unless Howe could drive the Ameri- 
cans from their post, the fleet would be driven fi'om 
the bay. Howe resolved to make tlie trial. A 



252 LECTURE VIII. 

day of storm gave Washington time to strengthen 
his works, till Howe, remembering how much the 
single redoubt of Bunker Hill had cost, gave up 
the attempt and evacuated the city. And thus the 
blockade of Boston, sustained for ten months by a 
judicious use of the ground, was decided without a 
battle by the judicious occupation of a favorable 
position at the proper moment. The man who 
wrote that the " success of a war depends in a 
great measure upon a choice of positions," would 
have found in this campaign something to study 
and much to praise ; and that man was Frederic 
the Great, when he sat down to write the history 
of his Seven Years' War. 

The same sldlful choice of positions character- 
ized the summer campaign of 1776. That he 
would be compelled to give ground before his dis- 
ciplined adversary, Washington knew from the 
first ; but he was resolved to dispute every foot of 
it where it could be disputed to advantage. He 
fortified Brooklyn and New York, and only gave 
them up when any further attempt to hold them 
would have imperilled the whole army. For we 
must constantly bear in mind that the loss of Wash- 
ino-ton's army would have involved the loss of the 
war, and that all his measures were controlled by 
political as well as by militar-y considerations. 
Could he have followed Greene's advice, — and 
there can be but little doubt that his own opinion 
went with it, — he would have burned New York. 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 253 

But Congi'ess ordered him to protect and preserve 
it. And thus the enemy — for to keep it from 
them was impossible — obtained a sure base of 
operations for the whole war ; a base which ena- 
bled them to use their fleet at will. 

See for a moment his position the second day 
after the battle of Long- Island. The battle was 
irretrievably lost. To defend the works at Brook- 
lyn was impossible, for the enemy's fleet could in 
a few hours be brought against them on one side 
while the enemy's army attacked them on the 
other. How promptly was the plan of retreat 
formed ! how promptly was it carried into execu- 
tion ! In a single afternoon boats of all kinds were 
brought together from a range of fourteen miles. 
In a single night nine thousand men, with all their 
tents, baggage, and field-artillery, were conveyed 
from within earshot of the enemy across a rapid 
river three quarters of a mile wide. The English 
lay down at night with the Americans in their 
toils ; they arose in the morning to see them safe- 
ly landing on the opposite shore. The last to em- 
bark was Washington himself. He had been for- 
ty-eight hours without closing his eyes, and most 
of the time in the saddle. 

And now half of the army that his skill had 
saved deserted him. The mihtia went off", — I use 
his own words, — "in some instances almost by 
whole regiments, in many by half ones, and by 
companies at a time." The regulars, if any part of 



254 LECTURE VIII. 

this irregular body deserved the name, were " ill' 
fected by their example." "With the deepest 
concern," says he, in words almost pathetic fi-om 
the simplicity with which they unveil the secret 
struggle of his heart, " with the deepest concern I 
am obliged to confess ray want of confidence in the 
generality of the troops." It was then that Con- 
gress, yielding to his remonstrances, voted that 
army of eighty-eight battalions for the war, which, 
as we saw in our last lecture, was never much 
more than an army on paper. 

And now see how, with these remnants of a de- 
moralized army, Washington continued to retard 
the enemy's advance, and control his movements. 
It was Howe's aim to cut off his communications 
with the Eastern States, and, shutting him up on 
York Island, compel him to fight at a disadvantage. 
It was Washington's aim to gain time by disputing 
the ground where it could be disputed, and pro- 
tracting the campaign while Congress was matur- 
ing its plans and raising a new army. The battle 
of Long Island was fouo;ht on the 27th of August ; 
but it was not till the 15th of September that the 
enemy got possession of New York. A strong po- 
sition enabled him to fight the brilliant skirmish at 
Harlaem, which cost the enemy over a hundred 
men, and went far towards restoring the Americans 
to the confidence they had lost in the defeat of 
Long Island. A well chosen position enabled him 
to make his stand at the White Plains, and hold 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 255 

his ground till the British general was compelled to 
renounce the hope of forcing him to a general ac- 
tion at a disadvantage, on the left bank of the Hud- 
son. Foiled therefore in this, Howe crossed over 
into the Jerseys, and Washington began that mem- 
orable retreat, in which, by contesting every inch of 
ground that could be contested, by breaking down 
bridges, and tlirowing every possible obstacle in 
the enemy's path, he made less than seventy miles 
of level country cost them nineteen days, and suc- 
ceeded not only in putting the broad Delaware be- 
twixt his army and theirs, but effectually secured 
the command of the river by sinking or destroying 
all the boats from Philadelphia upwards, for seven- 
ty miles. 

Now, thought Howe, the campaign is over ; we 
have secured New York ; we have overrun New 
Jersey ; all that remains to do is to hold our 
ground by detachments, and go quietly into the 
comfortable winter-quarters that we have won for 
ourselves. Lord Cornwallis, who had been fore- 
most in all these movements, asked leave of ab- 
sence, and prepared to make a visit to England. 

Washington had crossed the Delaware on the 
8th of December, with less than three thousand 
men fit for duty. He had readily divined the 
enemy's plan of keeping down the Whigs by 
spreading their men over a large tract of country. 
" And now," said he, " is the time to clip their 
wings when they are so spread." On Christmas 



256 LECTURE VIII. 

night he recrossed tlie river, knoAving that the en- 
emy would keep dull wntch mid their Christmas 
carols. The weather was so cold that of the four 
or five men lost, two at least were frozen to death; 
but in spite of the ice, which delayed him till near 
daybreak, before the next daybreak he was safe 
again on the Pennsylvania shore Avith nine hun- 
dred and nine prisoners, and all their arms and 
equipments. Nothing but the ice saved the troops 
at Bordentown from a similar fate. 

Cornwallis, giving up all thoughts of England 
for that winter, hurried back to Brunswick, and, 
gathering in his forces, marched rapidly upon Tren- 
ton, Avhich Washington, following up his blow, had 
reoccupied on the 30th of December. By four in 
the afternoon of the 2d of January, Cornwallis 
was upon him with a superior force. By the 5th, 
Washington was securely encamped at Pluckemin ; 
the enemy had been baffled by a bold change of line 
of operations ; the battle of Princeton had been won, 
and nothino; left to the Enolish general of his con- 
quests in the Jerseys but Brunswick and Amboy. 

Frederic himself could not, under similar cir- 
cumstances, have chosen a better winter-post than 
that which Washington now took at Morristown ; 
strength, command of supplies, security of com- 
munications, accessibility to reinforcements, con- 
venience for watching the enemy and harassing 
him at every opening, were all combined. Hence- 
forth, a cloud Hke that which lowered so ominous- 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 257 

ly before the eyes of Hannibal, when Fabius was 
■watching liini from the mountains, met the eyes of 
Howe whenever he turned them towards the west. 
He advanced, he retreated, he threatened, now on 
one side, now on another ; he exhausted all the 
manoeuvres of his art in efforts to brhig the Amer- 
ican to an engagement, and open for himself a land 
route to Philadelphia ; and, thwarted in all, sud- 
denly withdrew to New York, and, embarking his 
troops, put to sea. 

Whither ? An anxious question, which Wash- 
ington anxiously revolved. From the north, Bur- 
goyne was advancing towards Albany. A corre- 
sponding advance from New York might break the 
line of the Hudson, and cut oif the communica- 
tion between the Middle and the Eastern States. 
All that he could do to prevent it, Washington had 
already done. But on what point of the long line 
of the American coast this new blow would fall, 
it was impossible to foresee. Philadelphia seemed 
the most probable, and, holding himself ready to 
move at a moment's warning, he prepared for a 
desperate struggle. 

At last the veil was lifted. The British fleet 
was in the Chesapeake ; the British army was land- 
ing at the head of Elk. Washington hurried his 
motley battalions southward, looking hopes which 
he hardly felt, and trying to rouse the courage of 
Philadelphia by marching in full array through the 
city. Political motives called loudly for a battle, 



258 LECTURE VIII. 

and he fouglit the battle of the Brandywine. Er- 
roneous information concerning the movements of 
Cornwalhs, a circirmstance utterly beyond his con- 
trol, was brought him just as he was upon the point 
of crossing the river to attack Knyphausen, and 
cut off the Englisli line of retreat, — a suscscestion 
of the same daring genius which suggested the 
advance upon Princeton, and which could hardly 
have failed of the same brilliant success. Defeat- 
ed, he secured his retreat, saved his army, was 
ready for another battle. A violent storm coming 
on just as both sides were preparing to engage, sep- 
arated them on that day, and when the storm 
ceased, the Americans, ill-provided for such con- 
tingencies, found that their ammunition was Avet. 
Marching, countermarching, manoeuvring fol- 
lowed. Howe had but thirty miles between him 
and Philadelphia ; thirty miles through an open 
country in which every stream was fordable ; but 
so judicious were Washington's manauivres, so 
unremitting his watclifulness, so skilful his em- 
ployment of his unequal force, that fifteen days 
were consumed in marching those thirty miles. 

Philadelphia fell ; but hardly were the English 
established in their quarters, when Washington 
darted upon their advance at Germantown, and, 
though foiled in his attempt to cut them off, struck 
a blow that was felt at once b}^ the American 
Commissioners in Paris. "Nothing," said Count 
Vergennes, " has struck me so much as General 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 259 

Wasliington's attacking and giving battle to Gen- 
eral Howe's army ; to bring an army raised within 
a year to this, promises everything." A continued 
struggle of six weeks for the command of the Delr 
aware followed, and November was near its end 
before Howe could truly call Philadelphia his own. 
Bvit the cloud was still on the horizon, ominous, 
full of menace. He could not rest tranquilly in 
his pleasant quarters till he had seen what those 
menaces meant. Opposite the range of hills on 
which the American army lay, was the range of 
Chestnut Hill, equally strong. From this Howe 
tried once more to draw his enemy into an engage- 
ment on unfavorable ground. Washington was 
willing to fight on ground of his own choice, but 
not on that of his enemy's choosing. Three days 
the English general manoeuvred ; three days the 
American general stood prepared for an attack. 
Neither party was willing to give up the advan- 
tage of ground; and Howe, on the afternoon of 
the third day, confessing himself once more van- 
quished in the contest of skill, marched his four- 
teen thousand veterans back to Philadelphia, leav- 
ing fifteen thousand Americans, not a thousand of 
whom had seen a year's service, and more tlian 
three thousand of whom were militia, in undisput- 
ed possession of the field. 

Then came that terrible winter at Valley Forge, 
which our fathers could never speak of without a 
shudder. The general was once more merged in 



260 LECTURE VIII. 

the organizing, administrating statesman. And 
when, in the summer of 1778, he led liis new 
army down upon the traces of Chnton, — flying 
traces I might almost call them, so hurried was his 
passage through the once conquered Jerseys, — it 
was an army into which Steuben had infused a 
spirit of order and discipline which no American 
army had possessed before. Do you remember 
Monmouth ? Washington's positive orders to fight ? 
Lee's unwillingness to obey them ? Have you not 
seen Washington standing with his arm on his 
horse's neck, waiting for tidings from the advance, 
— the burst of indignation with which he received 
the tidings that Lee was retreating, — how he sprang 
into the saddle, spurred to the front, checked by his 
presence the retreat, though almost a flight, issued 
his rapid orders, restored the confidence of men 
and officers, and snatched a victory from the eager 
grasp of his experienced and skilful adversary? 
No time that for deliberation and counsel, but for 
lightning thoughts and words that should send ev- 
ery man to the right place, resolved to do the duty 
assigned him or die in trying to do it. 

No great movements marked the next two years. 
To preserve the line of the Hudson, to secure the 
passes of the Highlands, to straiten the enemy in 
his quarters, and inflict upon him some of that 
distress for food in summer, and food and fuel in 
winter, which fell so hea\aly upon his own troops, 
was almost all that Washington could do with his 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 261 

skeleton of an army. But he planned expeditions 
and directed them, saved Connecticut by sending 
Wayne to storm Stony Point, and still made him- 
self everywhere felt as the inspiring and command- 
ing spirit. But I hasten to 1781, the great year 
of the war, and to Yorktown, where Washington 
heard for the last time that whistling; of bullets, in 
the sound of which he had found something so 
charming when he first heard it at the " Great 
Meadows," twenty-seven years before. 

Cornwallis was in Virginia. Clinton had weak- 
ened New York by detachments. In conji\nction 
with Rochambeau, Washington planned a blow at 
this stronghold from whence so many fatal expedi- 
tions had been sent forth since it first fell into the 
hands of the enemy. Preparations were made 
upon a scale commensurate with the object. The 
combined armies advanced close to the old ground 
of the autumn campaign of 1776. But the 'rein- 
forcement which had been called for weeks before 
did not come, and at the most critical moment a 
strong reinforcement reached the English. Just 
at this moment, too, came tidings that a French 
fleet might soon be expected in the Chesapeake. 
Between daybreak and breakfast, Washington de- 
cided to carry the war into Virginia, and, if he 
could not cut off Clinton, to deprive him at least of 
his right arm, Cornwallis. 

Admitting none to his councils but those with 
whom immediate co-operation was required, he 



262 LECTURE VIII. 

made all his preparations with profound secrecy 
and marvellous despatch. Every appearance of a 
design upon New York was carefully kept up, — a 
camp was marked out in the Jerseys as if for oper- 
ations from that quarter, and false intelHgence pre- 
pared and allowed to fall into the enemy's hands. 
Even trusted officers were held till the last mo- 
ment in ignorance of their destination ; Washino;ton 
knowing well, and again I use his own words, that 
"when the imposition does not completely take place 
at home, it can never sufficiently succeed abroad." 
The American army was already on the banks of 
the Delaware before Clinton sus^^ected whither 
it was going. On the 20th of August, it began 
to cross the Hudson ; by the 25th of September, 
it was before Yorktown. How skilfully the siege 
was conducted, how gloriously it ended, I need 
not tell an audience of Americans. Need I tell 
them tliat, in the formation and carrying out of 
this decisive plan, Washington had displayed a 
promptness of conception, a power of combination, 
and a completeness of execution, whicli, when 
combined Avith the knowledge of character, force 
of will, and personal intrepidity which have never 
been denied him, entitle him to a place among the 
greatest of generals ? 

The first campaigns of the Northern army de- 
rive thciir historical importance from their having 
deprived the Colonies of two provinces which might 
have become useful members of the Union, and 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 263 

having left the enemy in possession of a strong 
base of operations on the northern frontier. The 
last, fi'om the enemy's attempting to use that base, 
and losing a large and well-appointed army in the 
attempt. Two episodes, one brilHant and one sad, 
have preserved the memory of the first campaign 
with peculiar freshness ; and we still speak of Ar- 
nold's march through the wilderness, and Mont- 
gomery's death, as we speak of the occurrences of 
last year. If history were always just, there would 
be a brilliant page in those nortliern annals for Sul- 
livan too, whose masterly retreat in the face of 
overwhelmning obstacles, was one of the great 
events of the war. But success, which too often 
lends as false a coloring to our judgments of the 
past as to our opinions of the present, has in spite 
of the indignant protests of contemporaries, and the 
unanswerable demonstrations of impartial investi- 
gators, given the honor of the closing campaign to 
a man who, of all those who bore a part in these 
events, had the smallest share in preparing the 
causes, and hardly a greater one in directing the 
measures which led to that glorious consummation. 
The Northern campaign of 1777 ought to have 
been for England the last campaign of the war. 
Secure in the possession of Canada, an advance by 
Lake George to Albany, supported by a corre- 
sponding advance from New York, would have cut 
oflF the communication between the Eastern and 
Middle States, and reduced each section to its un- 



264 LECTURE VIII. 

assisted resources. But to accomplish this, Bur- 
goyne should have been twice as strong, Howe 
and Clinton twice as active. When Burgoyne be- 
gan his advance, Schuyler was in command of the 
Northern army. The experience of two campaigns 
on the same ground had prepared him for the diffi- 
cult task of disputing step by step the advance of 
an enemy greatly his superior in appointments and 
discipline. And never was ground disputed more 
resolutely, never were obstacles accumulated more 
persistently, in an enemy's path. At every step 
the British general was compelled to pause in order 
to remove some obstruction which his skilful ad- 
versary had put in his way. The farther he ad- 
vanced, the more did his embarrassments increase. 
If there was labor in front, there was danger on 
the flank, and still greater danger in the rear. 
The diversion in the Mohawk by St. Leger, which 
at one moment promised him important aid, was 
defeated by the watchfulness of Schuyler, and the 
energy of Arnold. A desperate attempt to get 
supplies from Vermont had cost him seven hun- 
dred men at Bennington. He counted the miles 
behind him and the miles before ; he counted his 
supplies, and saw no escape from starvation but in 
a rapid advance, or a still more rapid retreat. 
And he could do neither without opening or secur- 
ing his way by an overwhelming victory. When 
Gates took command of the American army on the 
19th of August, the toils were so far laid around 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 265 

the English general, that a child's hand might have 
drawn them. Two brilliant battles were fought, 
but neither at Stillwater nor at Bemis's Heio-hts 
was the American general under fire. On the 
17th of October, the English laid down their arms. 

Why did not the army at New York save them ? 

The original plan of the campaign had comprised 
an advance by Howe along the line of the Hud- 
son, and an irruption into New England. Instead 
of this, he turned southward, as we have already 
seen, and directed all his efforts against Philadel- 
phia. Burgoyne's advance from Canada was well 
known, and in all Howe's army there were but 
two men who did not wonder at the sudden change 
in his well-devised plan of co-operation. These 
two, Cornwallis and Grant, had doubtless been ad- 
mitted to his secret counsels ; and we now know, 
what they alone then knew, that another plan of 
operations had been proposed to the British com- 
mander by Charles Lee. 

Lee was then a prisoner in New York, — a dis- 
appointed and embittered man ; signally foiled, 
hitherto, in his selfish ambition, and still revolving 
schemes of selfish revenge in his morose and 
gloomy mind. In a long letter to the Howes, — 
the General and the Admiral, — he proposed the 
crushing of the rebellion by a movement to the 
southward ; and they accepted the suggestion, 
though, happily for us, in a modified form. And 
thus Burgoyne was left to make his way to Al- 

12 



2G6 LECTURE VIII. 

bany by liis own exertions ; the feeble and tardy 
co-operation of Clinton producing no result beyond 
the burning of two flourishing villages, and tHe 
destruction of some valuable stores. To Howe's 
contemporaries his change of plan was a mystery ; 
and history has classed it, thus far, among those 
actions which she is so often compelled to record 
without being able to explain them. But six years 
ago, eighty years, that is, after the event, Lee's 
original letter, with the indorsement of Howe's 
secretaiy, was brought to light, removing all 
doubts, not only as to Howe's motives in 1777, 
but as to his own motives also in the autumn of 
1776, and two years later at the battle of ^Ion- 
mouth. The whole story is so singular a one, so 
important in its bearing upon three capital events 
in our history, and so important, too, as showing 
to the warning of bad men, and the comfort of the 
good, that sooner or later historical truth, like mur- 
der, will out, that I cannot resist the temptation of 
recommending to you all the I'emarkable disserta- 
tion which George Henry Moore, Librarian of the 
New York Historical Society, has devoted to it.* 

^Ve come now to the Southern campaigns of 
1780 and 1781. And it is not without some mis- 
givings that I approach this part of my subject ; 
for I am well aware that it is no easy thing in 

* Tlie Treason of Cliarles Lee, by George H. Moore, Libra- 
ri.in of the New York Historicixl Society. New York : Charlea 
Scribner. 1860. 1 vol. Svo. 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 267 

speaking of our ancestors to guard oui'selves against 
the insinuations of personal feeling. But the doc- 
uments are within your reach to correct me if I 
err. 

In none of the thirteen Colonies had the Brit- 
ish arms been so uniformly successful as m the 
Carolinas and Georgia. They had taken Savan- 
nah, and held it against a combined attack of Amer- 
icans and French by land and water. They had 
taken Charleston, and secured the line of the San- 
tee by strong posts at Fort Watson and Granby, 
and the western districts by the still stronger post 
of Ninety-six, between the headwaters of the Sa- 
vannah and Saluda. The battle of Camden had 
opened a passage into North Carolina through the 
broad lowlands which lay unguarded between the 
Cata,wba and the Great Pedee ; and England's 
best soldiers, gathering around her best general, 
Cornwallis, were preparing to throw themselves 
with irresistible fury upon the feeble and disheart- 
ened remnants of the conquered army. 

The population, not yet numerous in times of 
peace, had shrunk from the presence of hostile 
armies, and still more from tlic tierce war between 
Whig and Tory, till whole districts had been left 
desolate. Of those who still ventured to remain 
on their plantations and cultivate them, many were 
devoted to the royal cause, and many more than 
lukewarm in the cause of their country. 

The American army was encamped at Cliarlotte, 



2G8 LECTURE VIII. 

between the Catawba and the Great Pedee, near 
the southern border of North Carolina, and about 
sixty miles fi-om the British camp at AVinnsboro. 
When General Greene took command of it on the 
4th of December, 1780, it consisted of nine hun- 
dred and seventy continentals, and ten hundred 
and thirteen militia. A recent distribution of cloth- 
ing had given each of the regulars a coat, a shirt, 
a pair of woollen overalls, a cap or a hat, and a 
pair of shoes. The blankets had been apportioned 
by companies, upon an average of one blanket for 
three men. Few of the new recruits had clothes 
enough to enable them to make a decent appear- 
ance on parade. They had no tents, no camp 
equipage, no magazines, and were subsisting by 
daily collections, every day made more difficult by 
the indiscriminate ravages of friend and enemy. 
As Greene looked upon them, it seemed to him 
" that the word difficult had lost its meaning." 
"I liave been in search of the army I am to com- 
mand," he wrote to his wife on the 7th, but with- 
out much success, liaving found notliing but a few 
half-starved soldiers, remarkable for nothing but 
poverty and distress," "But," he adds, "I am 
in hopes matters will mend. I am in good health 
and in good spirits, and am unhappy for nothing 
except my separation from you and the rest of my 
friends." 

In advancing from Salisbury to Cliarlotte, Gates 
liad no intention of renewing active operations, 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 269 

and a council of war had already decided to lie 
quiet through the winter. But Greene, convinced 
that his first step must be to inspire officers and 
men with confidence in their leader, formed his 
own plans independently, and proceeded to piit 
them into execution without delay. He saw that 
his predecessors had been hurried into injudicious 
movements by consulting the wishes of the people, 
impatient to be freed from the presence of the ene- 
my, rather than the means at their disposal and the 
true nature of the war. He recalled the King of 
Prussia's maxim, that m defending a country it 
was necessary to attend to great objects and sub- 
mit to partial evils. He felt the difficulty of an- 
imating to great exertions a people who lived at 
such a distance from each other, and who, in spite 
of their danger, were intent on their private af- 
fairs. But he felt, too, that the success of the war 
depended upon " appearances and public opinion," 
and that if he would establish a character for judg- 
ment, enterprise and independence, he might hope, 
in spite of all his difficulties, to bring it to a suc- 
cessful termination.* 

He chose, therefore, a new camp at Cheraw 
Hill, on the Great Pedee, nearly forty miles far- 
ther south than Charlotte, thus placing himself 
within the borders of South Carolina, and on the 

* " Dans une guerre de cette nature, il faut du sang froid, da 
la patience et du calcul." — Napoleon, Note sur la position ac- 
tuelle de Tarm^e en Espagne. Napier, Pen. War, I. 442. 



870 LECTURE VIII. 

enemy's right flank. But at the same time he was 
resolved to leave nothing to chance which pru- 
dence and forethought could secure. Three great 
streams intersected the region where the first and 
fiercest struggle would come, and in the hope of 
finding them navigable by batteaux, he sent out 
ofiicers to explore them cai'efiilly, ascertaining the 
depth of water, the currents, the rocks, and every- 
thing which could favor or impede the progress 
of a boat. He cansed a large number of boats 
suited to these shallow and rapid waters to be built, 
no easy task in the dearth of tools and artificers, 
and carried them with the army wherever it went. 
He estabhshed a depot for prisoners at Salisbury, 
and did everything that his means permitted to 
establish depots of provisions at convenient points, 
and open a sure communication with them. South 
Carolina was so completely in the hands of the 
enemy, that no aid could be expected from what 
remained of her civil government ; but with the 
governors of North Carolina and Virginia, he kept 
up an active correspondence, explaining his condi- 
tion, and pointing out the best modes of relief. 
And at the same time he did all that his circum- 
stances permitted to restore the moral tone of his 
army, and instil into officers and men a spirit of 
discipline and soldierly pride. 

Short time, however, was given him for prepara- 
tion. Strong reinforcements had already reacned 
ComwaJhs, and every inchcation gave warning of 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 271 

an active winter campaign. Without waiting for 
his adversary to begin, he boldly took the initiative 
by detaching Morgan with six hundred men to join 
Davidson and his militia, and rouse the country 
west of the Catawba. 

Cornwallis was perplexed. Greene might be 
aiming at Charleston, to which the camp at Che- 
raw was as near as the camp at Winnsboro. To 
meet this danger, he left Leslie on the east bank 
of the Catawba. The Whig spirit in the regions 
west of the Bi'oad River and round Ninety-six, 
might be roused by the sudden reappearance of 
the American army. To meet this danger he de- 
tached his favorite officer, Tarleton, with orders to 
crush Morgan. Then fearing a sudden blow at 
Leslie, he ordered him to break up his camp on the 
Catawba and join the main army. Already one 
of the advantages of his superiority had been 
wrested from him by his enterprising adversary ; 
he had lost the initiative. 

Tarleton's rapidity soon brought him up with 
Morgan, who felt himself in a condition to fight, 
and who well knew how much at that moment 
even a partial success would encourage his coun 
trymen. His own judicious choice of ground, and 
a bold movement of Colonel Howard, of Mary- 
land, at the critical moment of the battle, gave 
him a complete victory, and Tarleton barely es- 
caped with a few followers to carry to Cornwallis 
the unexpected tidings of his disaster. Cornwallis 



272 LECTURE Till. 

saw that no ordinaiy exertions could repair it. 
Still Morgan must be cut ofF; liis five hundred 
prisoners must be released. Taking a day to etFect 
his junction with LesHe, and collect the relics of 
Tarleton's defeat, he broke up his camp on tlie 
morning of the 19th, and pushed rapidly forwai'd 
in the hope of getting between Morgan and the 
Dan, and thus preventing the junction of the two 
divisions of the American aimy. 

But Morgan Avas in motion before him, and 
tliough encumbered by prisoners, and obhged to 
collect provisions by detachments as he mai'ched, 
was at Beale's Ford, on the Catawba, sixty miles 
from the Cowpens, on the evening of the 23d. 
The next morning he crossed the river, and for 
the first time since the battle, could safely give his 
men a short breathing-space. Do not forget that 
the distances of those days are not to be measured 
by the distances of ours. The battle of the Cow- 
pens was fought on the ITth of January, and it 
was not till the evening of the 2oth that the ti- 
dings of it reached the American camp at Cheraw. 
Greene instantly put his array under marching 
orders, made all his preparations for advance or 
retreat as cu'cumstances might require, and taking 
with him a sergeant's guai'd of dragoons, pushed 
rapidly across the country, — near a hundred miles' 
ride, — to put himself at the head of tlie victorious 
detachment, while Huger brought up the main 
body to the place fixed for theu' junction. Could 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 273 

he unite the two divisions of liis ai'iny, and call out 
a sufficient body of militia, he might be strong 
enough to fight Cornwallis himself. But the mi- 
litia failed him, and then came that celebrated 
retreat from the banks of the Catawba to the banks 
of the Dan, — one hundred and fifty miles of roads 
scarcely passable in the best seasons, but in Febru- 
ary alternately mire and frozen ground, his half- 
clad soldiers reddening it all the way as they passed 
Avith the blood from their naked feet, and the enemy 
well clothed, well fed, well armed, pressing on their 
rear confident of victory and eager for revenge. 
But so well were Greene's measures taken, and 
such was the spirit with which he inspired his 
troops, that the junction with the main body was 
eflfected, and the whole army placed in safety on 
the north bank of the Dan. Foiled in his main 
object, Cornwallis turned his face southward, and 
raising the royal standard at Hillsboro, tried tc 
rouse the loyalists by a proclamation announcing 
the evacuation of the State by the army of the 
Congress, and his own presence at the head of the 
victorious army of the King. But hardly had he 
begun his march from the Dan towards Hillsboro, 
before an American detachment was again over 
the river hanging upon his rear, cramping his 
movements, cutting off stragglers, and keeping 
down the Tories. The main army followed on the 
23d. A fearful blow from the advanced detach- 
ment crushed a body of four hundred Tories on 

12* B 



274 LECTURE VIII. 

their way to the British camp, crushing with them 
the awakening spirit of loyahy ; and without paus- 
ing to give liis men a breathing-space, Greene took 
a favorable position between Troublesome Creek 
and the Reedy Fork, — two tributaries of the 
Haw, — thus covering the communicatioxis with 
Viroinia, whence reinforcements were now coming 
rapidly forward, and retaining at the same time 
the means of retreating or advancing at will. 
Cornwallis followed, and pitched his camp on the 
Almance, another tributary of the Haw. For ten 
days Greene manoeuvred in front of the English, 
constantly in motion, now on the Reedy Fork, now 
on Troublesome Creek, changing his camp qxqvj 
night, and never staying long enough in one place 
to allow his adversary, though ever watchful and 
ever active, to strike a blow. During these anx- 
ious days he never took oif his clothes to sleep, — 
never quit the saddle but to take his pen or snatch 
a hasty meal. "With so active and exasperated an 
enemv at hand, night was more dangerous than 
day ; and every night, when all his other labors 
were over, he went the rounds alone, visiting ev- 
ery post, and making sure that every sentinel was 
keeping vigilant guard. It was in one of these 
rounds that he received Avhat he used in after life 
to speak of as the greatest c(mipliment ever paid 
him. Among his officers there was a namesake 
of his own, though not a relative, Colonel Greene, 
of Virginia, a bold and sturdy soldier. One night, 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 27 o 

as tlio General was going liis round, his ear was 
greeted by some unequivocal sounds from the 
Colonel's tent, which left no doubt as to how he 
was passing his time. Entering in haste and rous- 
ing him by a sudden shake, " Good God ! Col- 
onel," he cried, "how can you be sleeping, with 
the enemy so near, and this the very hour for sur- 
prises ? " " Why, General," replied the Colonel, 
rubbing his eyes, " I knew that you were awake." 

All knew that he was awake, soldiers and offi- 
cers, and the enemy too. But no one knew what 
the next order, or in what direction the next move 
would be. He called no councils, entered into no 
discussion, but, gathering all the information scouts 
and spies and constant watchfulness could give 
him, weighed it maturely in his own mind, and 
when the moment for decision was come, issued 
his orders and made sure that they were executed. 

The promised reinforcements came at last, and 
choosing his own ground, he drew up his army in 
three lines and awaited the approach of the ene- 
my. The battle was fierce and bloody ; and 
thougli the dastardly flight of the North Carolina 
miHtia who composed the first line compelled him 
to relinquish the honors of the field to his adver- 
sary, lie brought otl' his forces in perfect order, and 
was prepared to renew the trial the next day. But 
Cornwallis was too nnich crippled to risk another 
battle, or even to hold his ground ; a fourth of his 
army was killed or disabled. His best general, 



276 LECTURE VJJL 

O'Hara, was sei'iously wounded. His favorite 
colonel, Webster, was mortally wounded. The 
desperate pursuit into which Greene had lured him 
had cut him off" from his communications, and lef\; 
him without supplies in the midst of " timid friends 
and inveterate enemies." Nothing hut retreat 
could save him, and i-etreat must he prompt and 
unencumbered. Leaving seventy of his womided 
behind him under the protection of a flag, he be- 
gan his march towards Wilminoton. A o-lance at 
the map will show you where it lies, near the 
mouth of the Cape Fear, on a line with Camden, 
and thus a little south of Winnsboro, from whence 
he had started eight weeks before to complete the 
conquest of the Carolinas. His victory, as he 
called it, of Guilford Court House, had forced him 
back towards Charleston, and left his adversaiy in 
possession of the greater part of North Carolina. 

It was now Greene's turn to pursue, and wel- 
come as a few days' rest would have been to his 
jaded troops, he pushed forward M-ithout delay. 
But at Ramsay's Mills, on the Deep River, sixty 
miles about from the battle-ground of Guilford, 
the terms of the militia's service expired ; and al- 
though the enemy and certain victory were almost 
within their grasp, no entreaties or persuasions 
could induce them to stay a day beyond their 
time. 

Thus Cornwallis again outnumbered him, and 
what should he do ? Wait for supplies and roin- 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 277 

forcements Avhile taking advantage of his undisput- 
ed possession of the country, to rouse it to his 
suppoi't, and meanwhile give a short respite to his 
toil-worn regulars ? 

It was on the 28th of j\Iarch that he was com- 
pelled to give up the hope of overtaking Cornwal- 
lis, and on the 29th he wrote to Washington that he 
had resolved to advance directly upon the enemy's 
posts in South Carolina. " Nothing," he writes 
to Colonel Lee, in communicating his intentions, 
" nothing is left me but to imitate the example of 
Scipio, and carry the war into Africa." On the 
7th of April the gallant little army was on its way, 
officers and men wondering whither he was carry- 
ing them. When Cornwallis heard of his march, 
and the danger flashed upon his mind, he hesitated 
for a moment whether he ought not to go to the 
defence of the royal garrisons. But his army had 
known no rest since the campaign began, and he 
could not venture to call upon men who fought 
merely for pay, well clothed and thoroughly 
equipped as they were, for the sacrifices that 
Greene could ask from half-naked men who were 
fighting for freedom. To Wilmington therefore 
he went, the first step towards Yorktown. 

Camden was Greene's first aim, the enemy's 
strongest post ; and though it cost him the battle 
of Hobkirk's Hill, in which he was again compelled 
to leave his enemy in possession of the field, the 
apparent defeat again proved a real victory, and 



278 LECTURE VIII. 

the English garrison, with Lord Rawdon at their 
head, destroying their works, retreated to Monk's 
Corner, eighty miles nearer to Charleston. Fort 
Watson had already fallen. Fort Mott and Fort 
Granby fell next. The British line of defence was 
effectually broken, and on the 22d of May, Greene 
sat down before Ninety-six. Once more he was 
subjected to the mortification of seeing a brilliant 
prize snatched from his grasp, for Rawdon, hasten- 
ing forward with superior numbers, compelled him 
again to retreat. But the only use that the Eng- 
lish General could make of his superiority was to 
withdraw his garrison and abandon the western 
district:-, to their fate. Another month of incessant 
activity followed, and early in July Greene pitched 
his camp on the high hills of Santee, and his wea- 
ried army rested from its labors. Two more moves 
drove the enemy down upon the seaboard, and cut 
them off from the interior for the remainder of the 
war. The first, towards the end of August, ter- 
minating in the hard-fought battle of Eutaw 
Springs, which forced them back upon Dorches- 
ter and Bacon's Bridge, within a few miles of 
Charleston. The second, in November, which 
drove them headlong from Dorchester, leaving 
them hardly a foothold outside the city but the isl- 
ands on the coast, and converting what had set forth 
in January as the army of South Carolina, into the 
garrison of Charleston. When the news of this 
last brilliant move reached the North, Washington 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 279 

wrote to Laurens, " The report of the brilhant and 
successful movement of General Greene, by which 
he compelled the enemy to abandon their outposts, 
is another proof of the singular abilities which that 
officer possesses." 

Thus in the South as in the North, America tri- 
umphed by the strategic skill of her generals. 
With an army with which no European general 
would have dared to look his enemy in the face, 
Washington year after year held his ground against 
the best soldiers of Great Britain, and thwarted 
their best concerted plans. With an army even 
worse appointed than Washington's, Greene, in a 
single campaign, faced two British armies in suc- 
cession, forcing them both back upon the coast, 
and breaking up the strong line of well-chosen 
posts with which they fondly fancied they had 
made sure their possession of the interior. Phys- 
ical superiority yielded to skilful combinations, su- 
pei'ior discipline to superior judgment; men of 
talent, who had studied tlie art of war in the field 
under able generals to men who had studied it by 
the light of their own genius in the campaigns of 
Cffisar and Frederic. Read the history of the 
greatest commanders. See the obstacles with 
which they contended, and how they overcame 
them ; study the characteristics which they dis- 
played, in the camp, on the march, and on the bat- 
tle-field ; penetrate the spirit of their manrieuvres, 
and analyze the principles of then* combinations 



280 • LECTURE VIII. 

then go back to the mihtary history of our Revolu- 
tion ; follow Washington from Cambridge to York- 
town ; follow Greene from Charlotte to Charles- 
ton; and you will find that the strategy which 
defended the thirteen Colonies from the over- 
whelming power of Great Britain was in spirit and 
principle the same strategy which saved Italy 
from Hannibal, and carried Frederic in triumph 
through a seven j'-ears' war, with two thirds of 
Europe leagued against him and but one ally at 
his side. 

There are many other events which deserve men- 
tion, even in an outline of this war ; many other 
names which have strono- claims to our m'ateful 
remembrance. There was Sullivan's Rhode Island 
expedition in 1778, unsuccessful in its immediate 
object, but remarkable for a well-fought battle, and 
a skilful retreat. There was Sullivan's expedition 
against the Six Nations in 1779, planned with 
judgment and executed with energy. There was 
the gallant defence of Redbank, and the brilliant 
capture of Stony Point by storm. How many 
pleasant associations gather round the true-heart- 
ed and genial Knox. How well deserved was the 
respect which men felt for Lincoln ; how well 
earned their confidence in MacDougall. If little 
Rhode Island had her OlnCy and her Angell, and 
her Christopher Greene, little Maryland had her 
Williams and her Howard ; never was cavalry led 
to the charge more gallantly than the cavalry of 



CAMPAIGNS OF THE REVOLUTION. 281 

William Washington : never did partisan warfare 
bring out a bolder spii'it than Marion ; never was 
Hemy Lee excelled in the skilful conduct of an 
advanced corps, in hanging on the enemy's rear, 
and beating up his quarters. Who would willinglj 
forget the sturdy wagoner, Morgan, who with his 
keen-eyed riflemen decided the day at the first bat- ' 
tie of Stillwater ? or that Pennsylvanian, ever fore- 
most in desperate encounters, eagerly scenting the 
battle from afar ; the mad Anthony of the soldier, 
but to the friends he loved the high-minded, the 
generous, the affectionate Wayne ? Gladly would 
I speak of these, and of many more who fought 
by their side, and whose memories, if we had not 
too often permitted ourselves to be drawn by the 
cares or the pursuits of the present into a wicked 
forgetfulness of the past, would have been pre- 
served by statues and monuments, and all the tes- 
timonials by which a grateful people rewards the de- 
votion of its benefactors. But all that I could do 
in a single lecture I have endeavored to do ; still 
remembering, even while I ^elected single names 
as the representatives of the whole war, that nei- 
ther Washington nor Greene could have brought 
it to a successful termination if they had not found 
clear heads and skilful hands to comprehend and 
execute their designs. 



LECTURE IX 

THE FOREIGN ELEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION. 

WE come now to a very interesting, though a 
very difficult part of our subject, — the for- 
eign element in the war of the Revolution. It is 
very interesting to know how much help our un- 
trained officers received from the well-trained offi- 
cers of Europe who fought by their side. It is 
equally interesting to know how large a proportion 
of those who served in the ranks and bore the 
brunt of the war were men of foreign birth. The 
last is a question of statistics for which the data 
are extremely imperfect, or rather, almost entire- 
ly wanting. We know that there were many for- 
eigners among the common soldiers ; for we know 
that on more than one occasion when men were 
chosen for special service, special care was taken 
to employ none but natives. We know that there 
was a German legion ; and German and Irish 
names meet us constantly in the imperfect muster- 
rolls that have escaped the moths and rats, or not 
been burnt for kindlmg. But we know, also, that 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 283 

then as now, hundreds bore German and Irish 
names who had never seen Ireland or Germany. 
Conjecture and analogy then must supply the want 
of positive evidence ; and the analogy in the pres- 
ent war bears us fully out in the conjecture that by 
far the greater portion of the common soldiers were 
natives of the land for which they fought. 

Of foreign officers, the proportion in the higher 
ranks was much larger. Out of twenty-nine ma- 
jor-generals, eleven were Europeans; there were 
sixteen Europeans among the brigadiers ; and if, as 
we descend to colonels, captains, and lieutenants, 
we find the number comparatively less, we must 
remember that what the greater portion of them 
sought in the American service was increase of 
rank. Few would care to serve as captains or 
lieutenants in the half-clad, half-starved army of 
America, who could be captains and lieutenants in 
the well-clothed and well-fed armies of France or 
Prussia. 

But it is not by numbers that we are to estimate 
the services of these officers. Many of them had 
been trained to arms from their childhood. Many 
had served through the Seven Years' War, at that 
time the greatest war of modern history as a school 
of military science. All of them were practically 
familiar with the rudiments of their profession, the 
life of a camp, the duties of a field day. Ten sol- 
diers of such make as composed the bulk of Euro- 
pean annies might have very little mfluence in 



284 LECTURE IX. 

moulding the character of a regiment of American 
farmers and mechanics. But a single officer, of 
even moderate experience, could hardly fail to 
make his American colleagues painfully conscious 
of their deficiencies, even where the daily sight of 
his example did not go far towards correcting them. 
A colonel at a loss for some important evolution 
must have been greatly relieved to find that his 
lieutenant-colonel, or his major, knew all about it. 
And more than one general may have felt strong- 
er at the head of his division, after a few weeks of 
daily intercourse with generals who had passed 
their lives in camps. It surely is not assuming 
too much to say that, regarded merely as a contri- 
bution to the general stock of military science, the 
foreign element was a very important element in 
the army of the Revolution. 

But the war of the Revolution was a civil war ; 
a war of opinions and convictions, in which men 
fought, not for a few miles more or less of a terri- 
tory, that whether won or lost would add nothing 
to their individual aggrandizement, but for rights 
which involved not only their own happiness, but 
that of their remotest descendants. Every Amer- 
ican who drew his sword knew that a fearful pen- 
alty was attached to his failure, — a glorious re- 
ward to his success. He had relinquished positive 
advantages, broken strong ties, often sacrificed 
cherished affections and brilliant hopes. But he 
had done it conscientiously as the only thing which 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 285 

a good citizen could do ; and whatever the conse- 
quences might be, he was prepared to abide them. 
For him then it was a grave question, how far he 
ought to intrust his own and his country's cause 
to men who could not fully share either his hopes 
or his danger. 

To answer this question aright, we must give a 
glance — unfortunately it can be but a glance, — 
at two characteristic features in European society 
at the period of the American war. 

Long before that period France had placed her- 
self at the head of European civilization. The 
French language had taken the place of Latin as 
the language of diplomacy. French literature had 
taken the place of the Italian as the literature of 
refinement and taste. Everywhere fine gentlemen 
endeavored to imitate the au' and manners of the 
fine gentlemen of France. And fine ladies, as 
they decked themselves for the eye of the world, 
for the front row at the theatre, or for a presenta- 
tion at court, followed with scrupulous minuteness 
the fashions and example of Versailles. "If I 
were king of France," said Frederic the Great, 
" not a cannon should be fired in Europe without 
my permission." And for many years the kings 
of France endeavored to do what Frederic would 
have done, and give law to states as their tailors 
and milliners gave law to drawing-rooms. Riche- 
Heu had laid deep foundations on which Louis 
XIV. built a dazzHng superstructure. The name 



286 LECTURE IX. 

of country was merged in the name of king. De- 
votion to the sovereign became the test of patriot- 
ism. And those local attachments which have 
always been one of the chief buhvarks of society, 
wei'e converted into those personal attachments 
which have often been its greatest curse. 

Already when this transmutation began, men's 
minds had grown singularly indifferent to the obli- 
gations of nativity. Long and bloody civil wars 
had loosened the hold which the name of birth- 
place always retains in healthy minds. Turenne 
and Cond^ had alternately fought against their 
countrymen, and with them, and even after fight- 
ing side by side had led armies against each other. 
Yet France has classed them both among her fa- 
vorite heroes. Frenchmen had turned their swords 
against France long before the army of Coblentz 
was enrolled. Eno;lishmen had encountered Encr- 
lishmen at the point of the bayonet on more than • 
one bloody field. German and Swiss mercenaries, 
like the Condottieri of an earlier day, were long 
the chief reliance of every monarch in every war. 

Thus when the tie of country was loosest, the 
tie of sovereign began to be drawn more closely. 
Turenne and Cond^, who had shed the blood of 
Frenchmen freely, became the most devoted of the 
loyal servants of Louis. And when Louis was 
gone it took more than eighty years to undermine 
the edifice which he had built. First came the re- 
gency, and the religious element crumbled. Then 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 287 

the long profligacy of Louis XV., during which all 
the forms of reverence for the royal authority were 
observed, while the royal person became daily 
more an object of abhorrence or contempt, and 
last Louis XVL, on whose weak though innocent 
head all the sins of his fathers were fearfully visited. 

It was not all at once that the idea of couiitry 
could regain its natural control ; nor were men 
conscious, at first, how far their devotion to roy- 
alty had been weakened. Their minds were filled 
with contradictions. School and college set Greece 
and Rome before them as the worthiest objects of 
imitation, — great republics and the heroes of re- 
publics. The philosophy and literature of the day 
discoursing eloquently, if not always wisely, of the 
rights of mankind, awakened in their breasts vague 
longings for noble enterprises. They ate and 
drank, and made love and gamed as they had al- 
ways done ; but their language was the language 
of men who feel that life has higher pleasures and 
worthier objects than these. And while they were 
thus agitated and tossed to and fro, habit conflict- 
ing with thought, and the whole theory of life with 
the practice of it, came the American Revolution, 
giving sympathy a definite object, and the love of 
glory a noble field. Hence the enthusiasm with 
which Franklin was received in Paris, and the rev- 
erence which everywhere waited on his steps. 

But at the same time there was another, and 
perhaps a larger class, who shared this impatience 



288 LECTURE IX. 

of repose without sharing this longing for a nobler 
field of exertion. In the wars of Europe there 
had always been a demand for military science. 
A good officer could always count upon employ- 
ment under one banner if he could not get it un- 
der the other. And not unfrequently, the man 
who saw many wars, was found in the course of 
them fighting with equal zeal and equal honor 
under both. Germany had been an exhaustless 
storehouse of good soldiers, from which all the 
princes of Europe drew freely. Switzerland sent 
forth her hardy sons to fight for the best paymas- 
ter, whoever he might be. Swiss guards were 
found in the court of every potentate that could af- 
ford to keep them. War was an honorable trade for 
the soldier, an honorable profession for the officer ; 
and wherever they carried their strength or their 
knowledge, they were sure, when war was waging, 
to find honorable employment. Austria's greatest 
victories were won under the guidance of a foreign 
general. Frederic was constantly on the watch for 
able officers, and always ready to receive and trust 
them. The soldier was a citizen of the world. 

Now in this class, as in every other, we must 
expect to find all varieties and shades of character. 
There would be honorable men among them, lov- 
ing their profession, and ambitious of military glory 
as the highest glory. There would be mercenary 
men, ready to sell their blood to the highest bid- 
der, and risk life for the chances of gain. There 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 289 

would be intriguing men, and designing men, and 
quarrelsome men, and fretful men ; and there 
would be many who, with little ambition, no ex- 
cessive love of gain, and no spirit of intrigue, had 
gone into the army as they would have gone into 
the Church, or engaged in any other pursuit con- 
sistent with their rank which promised them a de- 
cent livelihood. 

For the greater part of these men peace was a 
misfortune. When armies were disbanded or reg- 
iments cut down, their occupation was gone. Even 
with his half pay, Captain Clutterbuck was an un- 
happy man till he fell upon the rare device of turn- 
ing local antiquary, and found occupation for the 
leaden-winged hours. But what could men do 
who had no ruined abbeys to explore, and no half- 
pay to live upon? The coffee-houses of Paris, 
the petty courts of Germany, the watering-places 
and towns of the provinces were always filled in 
time of peace with officers whom the war had 
thrown out of employment ; restless, impatient, 
and like the Mercury of Lucian's dialogue, longing 
for some new commotion that they might get their 
pay. 

To those men the American war was a Godsend. 
Even to those among them who did not care to 
venture so far in quest of employment, it opened 
a prospect of a speedy war in Europe, in which 
they could not fail to find ready purchasers of the 
blood they were ever ready to shed. But the 
13 s 



290 LECTURE IX. 

more active and the more ready were not to be 
deterred bj three thousand miles of ocean and the 
untried perils of a country hardly better known to 
the best informed than the interior of Africa. In- 
creased rank and good pay were all that they 
asked, and Silas Deane was ready to promise both. 
Soon the doors of Congress were thronged with 
candidates for all the highest places in the army ; 
the tables of Congress were covered with petitions 
for the fulfilment of the contracts which the zeal- 
ous commissioner had made in their name, and the 
recognition of claims which would almost have left 
Washington without an officer able to understand 
even the language of his orders. 

Nor was Congress their only resource. With 
their vague ideas of country, and their special code 
of morals, there was no violation of duty in hold- 
ing a commission from Congress and playing the 
spy for France, or Prussia, or any other power that 
felt sufficient interest in the question to seek for 
direct information. Hence some came in the 
double capacity of soldiers and secret agents, equal- 
ly sincere and equally active in each. America 
gained some good officers, and the courts of Europe 
much valuable information. 

MeauAvhile, the native officers who would gladly 
have taken advantage of the knowledge and expe- 
rience of a few good men to make up for their own 
deficiencies in both, became alarmed at the contin- 
uous flow of aspirants for the highest ranks, and 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 291 

still more at the manner in which Congress re- 
ceived their claims. The question of promotion 
had excited jealousies and discussions with the first 
appointments. No rule, perhaps, that could have 
been adopted would have given perfect satisfac- 
tion ; but worst of all was the frequent violation 
of the commonest rules. It is well known that 
Arnold's discontent first arose from seeing younger 
officers, who had not half his claims, arbitrarily 
promoted over his head. And Congress, although 
it might never have been able to make him a good 
man, certainly had no small share in making him 
a very bad one. From the beginning of the war to 
the end of it, there was an apparent reluctance to 
give satisfaction to the army by putting the claims 
of its officers to rank upon a sure foundation. Men 
never felt safe ; never felt sure that they might not 
suddenly find themselves called upon to receive 
orders from some one to whom they claimed the 
right of crivincr them. And even after Congress 
had grown more guarded in the distribution of 
honors, and these apprehensions had in a measure 
subsided, a sensitiveness remained, amounting al- 
most to distrust, which in any other country and 
with any other army, might have led to the most 
disastrous consequences. 

Congress itself was not free from embarrassment. 
Nothing could have been more hurtful to us in 
Europe than to send back a crowd of disappointed 
men who had come hither with the written prom- 



292 LECTURE IX. 

ise of its accredited agent. Nothing could have 
been more dangerous at home than to have put 
places of trust and confidence in the hands of men 
who had no permanent interest in the cause or 
the country for which they had agreed to draw 
their swords. Still, act and decide it must. Some 
were accepted and remained ; some were refused, 
and went back to complain of the injustice of Con- 
gress, and paint America and Americans in the 
blackest colors. 

Of those who remained, the greater part, al- 
though in the strict sense of the word military ad- 
venturers, did good service. One of the serious 
wants of our army, and which no native genius or 
rapid training could immediately supply, was the 
want of engineers. Washington's complaints of 
the incompetence of even the few who claimed the 
name began with his first letter from Cambridge 
to the president of Congress ; and a year later he 
wrote to the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety that 
he had but one in whom he could place confidence. 
Here the necessity of looking to Europe for assist- 
ance was so apparent, that Congress directed the 
Commissioners at Paris to engage competent engi- 
neers, with the approbation of the French court, 
and with the assurance of proper rank and pay. 
It was to this judicious resolution that we owe the 
services of Duportail, Launoy, Radiere, and Gou- 
vion, officers of good standing in the French army, 
and who brought us what we needed most, science, 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 293 

combined with practical skill. It was under their 
direction that most of the important works of the 
war, from 1777 to its close, were constructed. Du- 
portail was rewarded in 1781 with a commission of 
major-general ; and when he left the country, in 
1783, carried with him the strongest expressions 
of the esteem and regard of Washington. Radi- 
^re died in 1779, regretted by all as a valuable 
officer. Gouvion, like Duportail, distinguished 
himself by brilliant service at Yorktown, and 
good service everywhere. Launoy is classed by 
Washington with the other three as having ac- 
quired general esteem and confidence. If every 
foreign officer had served as they did, Washington 
would have been spared one of his greatest trials. 
But there were men among them of a very differ- 
ent stamp. 

Shortly before the arrival of Duportail and his 
companions came Thomas Conway, an Irishman 
by birth, but who, in the course of a thirty years' 
service, had risen to the rank of colonel in the 
French army. He now was anxious to become 
an American citizen, as he told the credulous 
Silas Deane, but still more anxious to become an 
American general, as Congress soon discovered. 
With an apparent frankness, which, in the be- 
ginning, produced a favorable impression even 
upon the cautious mind of Washington, he stated 
his claims, told the story of his military experience, 
and, winning favor with Congress, was made briga- 



294 LECTURE IX. 

dier-general. It was the year of the Brandy wine, 
and his conduct on that occasion appeared all the 
more favorably from its contrast with the conduct 
of Deborre, another adventurer, who had been 
raised to the same rank a few weeks earlier. But 
it was the year, too, as all remember, of that sud- 
den tide of unmei'ited success in the North which 
emboldened Washington's personal enemies to com- 
bine their strength against him, and set up Gates 
as his rival. How far this conspiracy extended in 
Congress and out of Congress, is not positively 
knoAvn. That Washington was to have been set 
aside, seems well established ; and with him the 
two generals whom he most trusted, Greene and 
Knox. That Gates was to have been put in his 
place, seems equally well established ; but how far 
he was a leader in the plot, or how far the mere 
tool of men more artful than himself, is not equally 
clear. Conway, who had been made a brigadier 
in May, was made inspector-general, with the rank 
of major-general, in December, when the plot was 
at its height ; and even after his intrigues became 
known, an expedition to Canada was got up by his 
friends in Congress, in order to give him the oppor- 
tunity of distinguishing himself at Washington's 
expense. But it is seldom that all the members of 
a conspiracy can command their passions so com- 
pletely as to conceal their hopes from those with 
whom they hve on familiar terms. Confident in 
the success of his schemes, Conway vented, in a 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 295 

letter to Gates, all the venom of his enmity to 
Washington, mixed with extravagant adulation of 
the successful general ; and Gates, intoxicated by 
the flattery, showed the letter to Wilkinson. Wil- 
kinson (I wish he had had a good motive for it) 
repeated one of the most obnoxious passages at the 
table of Lord Stirling, and Stirling, a frank and 
open-hearted man, moved both by his attachment 
to Washington and his indignation at the duplicity 
of Gates and Conway, communicated it immediate- 
ly to Washington himself, in a letter which does 
as much honor to his heart as to his head. Once 
on his guard, Washington met the attack with his 
habitual judgment and decision. Gates blustered, 
shuffled, and equivocated ; but, backed by strong 
partisans, contrived to hold his ground till the 
test-day of Camden, when even his warmest par- 
tisans were compelled to abandon him. Conway, 
too, blustered, wrote impertinent letters, tried mag- 
nanimity, injured innocence, violated indepen- 
dence, and all the stale tricks and subterfuges of 
rogues detected in their roguery ; but mistaking 
his strength, for he had no real hold even upon his 
fellow conspirators, he threw up his commission in a 
pet, then tried to get it back again and failed ; was 
wounded in a duel which his intemperate language 
had brought upon him, and, while on what he sup- 
posed to be his death-bed, wrote an humble apology 
to the great man whom he had injured. But the 
wound, though severe, was not mortal. He re- 



296 LECTURE IX. 

covered, and made his way back to France, to live 

— history does not tell how, and die — no one has 
asked where, but leaving in American history a 
name second only to that of Benedict Arnold, until 
the rival treasons of these latter days had robbed 
even that name of its bad pre-eminence. 

I hurry over these scenes : nor will I dwell on 
the name of De Neuville, or on those claims which 
made many other adventurers objects of jealousy 
to the Americans, and even drew bitter complaints 
from Washington. We have no means of esti- 
mating their individual services, or of ascertaining 
how far they made up by knowledge and skill for 
the trouble they gave by their pretensions. But 
we do know, that the pretensions of many among 
them were sources of well-founded discontent to 
native officers, and of constant uneasiness to the 
Commander-in-chief, to whose door all bickerings 
and all complaints sooner or later made their way. 
There are names, however, which I would gladly 
dwell upon. I would gladly tell of Fleury's bril- 
liant charge up the steep ascent of Stoney Point, 
and De Kalb's generous death on the fatal field of 
Camden. I would gladly speak of the " great 
zeal, activity, vigilance, intelligence, and courage " 

— I use Washington's words — of the Chevalier 
Armand, Marquis de la Rouerie. Longfellow's 
verses have given immortal freshness to the name 
of Pulaski. But the reader of Campbell knows 
Kosciusko only as the champion of Polish liberty. 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 297 

Let me add a few words to this record of the gal- 
lant Pole, before I pass to the two great names of 
my subject, — Lafayette and Steuben. 

Disar)pointed love brought him to America. 
"What do you seek here?" asked Washington, 
after reading Franklin's letter of introduction. 
" To fight for American freedom." " What can 
you do ? " " Try me." 

After a short service in Washington's family, as 
aid, he was made colonel of engineers, and sent to 
the Northern army. Here his military training 
stood him in good stead. All the important works 
were intrusted to his care. It was he that planned 
the strong line of entrenchments which proved so 
useful at Bemis's Heights. It is to him also that 
we owe the fortifications of West Point, where a 
romantic spot on a ledge of the precipitous wall 
that overhangs the Hudson is still pointed out as 
the Garden of Kosciusko. When General Greene 
was sent to take command of the Southern army, 
Kosciusko was placed at the head of his engineers ; 
and during the whole of that active campaign, no 
one, in his appropriate sphere, was more active or 
more useful than the gallant young Pole in his. 
It was not till the war was over, and American in- 
dependence secured, that he again turned his face 
towards Europe. One part of his task was accom- 
plished. The hour for the other was rapidly draw- 
ing nigh ; and when it came, it found him prepared 
to do all that it required, and bear all that it 

13* 



298 LECTURE IX. 

imposed, as became tlie friend and disciple of 
Washington. There ended his pubHc career. The 
long years that remained, a third almost of his 
whole life, were passed in retirement, and nothing 
can exceed the dignity which his calm and consist- 
ent patriotism shed around them. Napoleon sought 
to lure him from his retreat, and failed. Alex- 
ander listened respectfully to his intercessions for 
his exiled countrymen. And when he died, the 
women of Poland went into mourning, and his 
ashes were carried reverently back from the land 
of exile, to sleep on their native soil in the tomb of 
Poland's kings. 

I said that the two great names of my subject 
were Lafayette and Steuben, — the mercurial 
Frenchman, and the systematic German. Next 
to the two or three greatest of our own great men, 
no men I'endered such important service as they ; 
and it is no trifling addition to its value that it was 
a kind of service which none but such men could 
have rendered. None but a young enthusiast of 
high rank and large fortune could have broken 
through the barriers which instinct, habit, diploma- 
cy, and even sound statesmanship, ha(^ placed be- 
tween a rebel Congress and an absolute monarch. 
None but a soldier of long experience, deeply read 
in the principles of his profession, and practically 
familiar with their applications, would have known 
how to apply them to the wants of an array organ- 
ized so differently and composed of such different 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 299 

materials from those for which tacticians had 
fi'amed their precepts, and generals had written 
their instructions. Their characters, too, were as 
different as the parts which they performed : each 
partaking largely of those distinctive traits which 
belong to all Germans, on the one side, and to all 
Frenchmen on the other, and each equally distin- 
guished by characteristic traits of his own. 

They were both men of good talents, though 
neither of them could lay claim to that rarer order 
of mind which distinguishes the man of talent from 
the man of genius. They were both personally 
brave, cool and self-possessed in the hour of dan- 
ger. They were both capable of great exertions 
and great endurance ; both equally fond of that 
degree of convivial enjoyment which betokens 
geniality of nature rather than grossness of taste. 
They both possessed that species of cultivation 
which the habit of cultivated society gives; and 
read, wi'ote, and thought carefully whenever pro- 
fessional duty required carefiil study. But neither 
of them loved books for themselves, or took much 
pleasure in them beyond their bearing upon the 
practical questions in which they were more directly 
interested. They both had a high sense of honor, 
and ready sympathies, possessing and inspiring 
strong affections ; and both, independently of 
the adventitious circumstances which gave them a 
prominent place in society, would have made them- 
selves generally acceptable to men of refined and 



300 LECTURE IX. 

generous natures by the natural refinement and 
generosity of their own. 

Here the parallel ceases. Lafayette was bom to 
high rank and independent fortune. He had re- 
ceived the education of a man to whom all the 
paths of preferment were open ; and at seventeen 
was already a husband and a father. His marriage 
with a lady of equal rank and fortune with himself 
had strengthened his position at court, and seemed 
to mark out the line of duty and ambition for him 
as clearly as birth and alliance could draw it. As 
a boy, he had already taken the first step by enter- 
ino- one of those regiments which raised men most 
rapidly, — the mousquetaires noirs ; and when he 
left the French for the American army was a lieu- 
tenant. Thus he had learnt the rudiments of his 
profession early : was famiHar with garrison duty 
and parade duty as far as it was incumbent upon a 
Marquis to know them, but had never seen actual 
service, and had never commanded a regiment. 

Steuben was the son of a captain of engineers ; 
— born in a garrison, and with no prospect of for- 
tune or preferment but such as he could open for 
himself with his sword. His eai'liest associations 
were with armies and camps. When a mere child 
he had followed his father to the Crimea and Cron- 
stadt, and played among the fortifications that the 
old soldier was constructing with mucli professional 
skill and absolute professional indifference as to 
whom tli ey defended or who might lose his life in 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 303. 

winning them. Then came two or three yeai-s of 
study in a Jesuit college, where he laid good foun>- 
dations in mathematics and history, and acquired 
some tinctui'e of polite literature. French, under 
Frederic, was as important a language for a Ger- 
man who wished to push his fortunes as German 
itself; and Steuben studied them both with equal 
care. But the sound of the drum broke rudely in 
upon these softening pursuits, and before he was 
fully turned of fourteen, and while Washington 
was learning arithmetic, and filling his copy-book 
with legal and mercantile forms at Mr. Williams's 
school, near Bridge's Creek, his future inspector- 
general was already serving as a volunteer in the 
campaign of 1744, at the siege of Prague. The 
upward path in the Prussian army was a hard path 
to climb, and many there were who left arms and 
legs and life itself by the way. Young Steuben 
entered it with the enthusiasm of a high-spirited 
youth, reared in the midst of warlike exercises and 
traditions of military glory. When the Seven 
Years' War broke out, he had already reached the 
rank of first lieutenant. Meanwhile, his leisure 
hours had been well employed : building up surely 
upon the foundations he had laid during his short 
colleoe life, and making; himself master of engineer- 
ing and the most difficult of the scientific parts of 
his profession. Never before, in modern times, had 
its practical lessons and all its highest principles 
been applied as they were applied by Frederic 



302 LECTURE IX. 

during that bloody war ; and they who, like Steu- 
ben, fought through it all, might well claim that 
they had studied in war's greatest school. Steuben 
had one advantage beyond most of his comrades, 
and an advantage which was at the same time the 
highest distinction. Frederic, who, in the distribu- 
tion of his military favors never took birth or for- 
tune or anything but merit into consideration, had 
chosen among his younger officers a select number 
to study under his own eye, teaching and exam- 
ining them himself. Steuben was one of them. 

With the peace of 1762 the prospect of militaiy 
preferment ceased, and, withdrawing from the 
Prussian army, with at least one uncommon testi- 
monial of Frederic's esteem, a pecuniary reward, 
he entered the service of the Prince of Hohen- 
zollern Hechingen, as gi*and marshal of his court, 
— an office of the highest trust and dignity. The 
next ten years — those years during which the 
war on whose fortunes he was to exert such an in- 
fluence was a ripening — he passed in a dignified 
ease, diffi^ring Httle from idleness : in directing the 
elaborate ceremonial of a court, in ti-avelling with 
his new sovereign, and in social intercourse with 
the eminent men whom his official position made 
his acquaintances, and his personal qualities often 
made his friends. But the Prince was a Papist, and 
Steuben a firm Protestant, and thus, after over ten 
years' faithful service, he found himself compelled 
to resign his office, in order to escape a persecu- 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 303 

tion which the priests of the court — jealous of 
his influence with the sovereign — had stirred up 
against him. At this time there was a prospect of 
another war, and a sudden longing for his old pro- 
fession seized him. But till war should actually 
break out there were serious difficulties in obtain- 
ing employment in the rank he felt himself entitled 
to ; and when the cloud passed he became again 
a wanderer about the pleasant places of Europe, 
forming new friendships and cultivating the old. 
His fortune, though small, was ample for his mode 
of life. His ambition, thougli not fully gratified, 
had been honorably rewarded ; and with abundant 
sources of enjoyment at command, he might natu- 
rally have imagined that, at the age of forty-seven, 
his public career was closed forever. 

But now France, already half embarked in the 
contest, was looking about her for the means of 
rendering the Americans substantial aid. Money 
was given secretly ; arms and ammunition were sup- 
plied under an assumed name ; but neither money 
nor arms could avail without a well-organized and 
disciplined army. St. Germain, the French Minis- 
ter of War, an enthusiastic admirer of Frederic's 
military system, which he had tried ineflfectually 
to introduce into Denmark, and was now trying to 
introduce into France, had no confidence in un- 
trained soldiers, and knew that the Americans had 
no officer qualified to train theirs. He cast his 
eyes upon Steuben, whom he knew personally ; 



304 LECTURE IX. 

and at this moment, Steuben, wliolly unconscioua 
of his intentions, came to Paris. The negotiation 
was not without its difficulties. It was known that 
American oliicers were jeah)us of foreign officers. 
It was known that the Congress had refused to ful- 
fil Deane's engagements Avitli Ducoudray. The 
Commissioners themselves o])enIy declared their 
inabihty to advance even passage-money for the 
voyage. The service required corresponding rank, 
and to secure that rank beforehand was impossible. 
The enthusiasm of liberty might have overborne 
these and all other obstacles ; but Steuben had no 
enthusiasm for liberty. As a man of the world he 
knew the importance of rank. As a soldier he 
loved the active exercise of his profession. He 
had a slumbering ambition which the pi'ospect 
of distinction might easily arouse. But in this 
untried field there was neither the certainty of 
employment, nor the assui'ance of rank, nor even 
the definite promise of pecuniary reward. It was 
an adventure, beginning in sacrifice, and full of 
doubt and hazard by the way. 

But St. Germain's heart was in the negotiation. 
Bcaumarchais brought his ready wit and persuasive 
ehxpience to the task, and on the 1st of December, 
1777, Steuben landed from a sixty-six days' stormy 
passage at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 

Lafayette had already been six months a major- 
general in the American army. The same court 
which had exerted all its influence to train over 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 305 

Steuben for tlio Americans, employed all its 
authority to prevent Lafayette from coming to 
tlieir aid. Romance has no chapter more fasci- 
natino- than the chapter in which sober history 
tells how this buy of nineteen eluded the spies 
and agents of a watchful ministry, and accom- 
plished his designs in spite of obstacles that might 
have made the boldest hesitate. From the mo- 
ment in which he had heard of the American 
war from the mouth of King George's brother, 
the Duke of Gloucester, he had felt a noble 
longing to take the part of a people fighting 
for their liberties. It was like a sudden revela- 
tion of the purpose for which rank and fortune 
had been given him. Life had now an object 
worthy of all his devotion. What were the 
smiles of princes to the blessings of a liberated 
people ! What were ribbons and crosses and titles 
to the name of champion of human rights ! What 
was there in the knowledge that he had helped in 
adding a few miles of territory or a few thousands 
of fellow-subjects to the possessions of an absolute 
monarch, that could compare with the conviction 
of having helped in building up a nation of free- 
men ! How sweet would sacrifices seem in such a 
cause ! What a serene consciousness of duty ])er- 
formed would mino-le its soothin<T influences with 
the pains of separation from family and friends I 
And if he should never see them again, — if it 
should be his fate to die on the battle-field, as his 



306 LECTURE IX. 

father had died, — what a proud consolation, what 
an inspiring example, what a stimulant to great 
and noble deeds would it be for his children to 
know that their father had died in the cause of 
truth, of justice, and of humanity ! 

From the beginning Lafayette attached himself 
to Washington ; not merely as the commander-in- 
chief, whom it was his duty to obey, but as a pater- 
nal friend, whom it was a pleasure to love. This 
gave a direction to his views of men and things in 
Congress and in camp, which preserved him from 
the mistakes into which so young a man, so sud- 
denly transported into a new scene, and charged 
with such grave responsibilities, might easily have 
fallen. Washington's friends became his friends, 
Washington's aims his aims. No simple-hearted 
boy, fresh from his native village, could have de- 
meaned himself more modestly than this young 
nobleman, fresh from the first circles of the most 
polished city of Europe. He knew that he had 
much to learn, and he set himself to learn it with 
a deep conviction of its importance, and implicit 
confidence in his teachers. In elementary tactics 
he was better grounded, perhaps, than most of his 
brother officers. In higher science many of them 
were still students as much as he. But in the 
government of a free people, in the art of drawing 
out the resources of a country in which every man 
had a voice and an opinion of his own, in the form- 
ing and guiding and sustaining public sentiment, 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 307 

all was new to him, all was as much at vanance 
with his habits and associations as it was in har- 
mony with his instincts and feelings. Of all these 
things Washington's camp was a practical school. 

Nor was it less a school of systematic and un- 
tiring industry. Hard work, as well as hard fare, 
was the lot of most American generals ; but those 
who sought a larger share of Washington's confi- 
dence, had a double share of both. The saddle 
and the wiiting-desk, the sword and the pen, in 
rapid and constant alternation, left little room for 
amusement, or even rest, in the active parts of a 
campaign ; and though winter quarters brought 
some relaxations, there was still work enough to 
task the most diligent pen and the most active 
mind. 

Lafayette fell into this new mode of life as easily 
as if he had been trained to it. In his manners 
there was a polished dignity which suited well w^ith 
Washington's ideas of the proprieties of social inter- 
course ; and, at the same time, a readiness to meet 
the wishes and enter into the feelings of others, 
which made him acceptable to men of every class. 
The Marquis soon became a familiar appellation 
in camp ; and soon, too, his munificent generosity 
and untiring benevolence won for him, every- 
whei'e, the still dearer appellation of the soldiers' 
friend. 

In all this he was, unconsciously, perhaps, in 
the beginning, but afterwards with a thorough 



308 LECTURE IX. 

consciousness and well-directed exertions, ren- 
dering important service to the cause to which he 
had devoted himself. Of the opinions and preju- 
dices which the American Colonists brought with 
them from their native island, there were none 
which they had preserved more carefully than their 
derogatory opinions of Frenchmen and their preju- 
dices against France. That one Enolishman could 
whip three Frenchmen was as fundamental an arti- 
cle of Colonial as of English belief. In French 
politeness they saw nothing but heartless vanity. 
In French society nothing but sensuality and cor- 
ruption. The perfidious French government was 
still seeking to outwit the honest, unsuspecting 
government of England. And even when stripped, 
by the peace of 1763, of her possessions on the 
Colonial fi'ontier, France, although no longer an 
object of immediate apprehension, was none the 
less an object of dislike. 

But American statesmen well knew that in their 
unequal contest with the most powerful nation of 
Europe, France was their first, if not their only, 
ally. They needed French arms. They needed 
French money. They might need French ships 
of war, and French soldiers. This reflection had 
led them to welcome, as a happy omen, the first 
appearance of military adventui'ers from France, 
and added not a little to tlie embarrassment of 
Congress when they became so numerous as to 
make it necessary to refuse their offers of service. 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 309 

Yet the minds of these statesmen were not free 
from the hereditary prejudice, as the conduct of 
John Adams and John Jay clearly showed, at a 
moment when all prejudice ought to have ceased: 
nor the minds of generals, and still less of inferior 
officers, as plainly appeared in the expedition 
against Rhode Island. What, then, could be ex- 
pected — or rather, what was not to be feared — 
when well-dressed and well-paid French soldiers 
should be brought to serve side by side with the 
half-naked soldiers of America ? 

To smooth these difficulties, to overcome these 
prejudices, to convert antipathy into confidence 
and jealousy into an honorable and friendly emu- 
lation, was the first good office which Lafayette 
rendered his adopted country. His money gave 
him the means of doing many little acts of season- 
able kindness, and he did them with a grace which 
doubled their value. His rank enabled him to as- 
sume a tone with his dissatisfied countrymen which 
sometimes checked their arrogance and often set 
bounds to their pretensions. A true Frenchman 
in impulse, chivalrous sense of honor, and liveliness 
of perception, he taught Americans to bear more 
readily with qualities, which his example showed 
them, might easily be united with the perseverance, 
the firmness of principle and the soundness of 
judgment which they had been wont to set above 
all other qualities. The French alliance might 
have been gained without Lafayette ; but the liar- 



*5iO LECTURE IX. 

monj of feeling which made it practically available, 
was in a large measure owing to the hold which 
Lafayette had taken upon the confidence and the 
affections of the American army and the American 
people. 

And but for him that alliance might have 
come too late. It is true that he came to us in 
defiance of his government, escaping in disguise 
the lettre de cachet which a ministry, alarmed 
and shocked at his disobedience, had issued against 
him. But it is no less true that the sympathetic 
enthusiasm of Paris was raised to the highest pitch 
by this display of a chivalrous daring, which Paris- 
ians prize so highly ; and that the English court 
was fully persuaded that he had done nothing but 
what his own court approved. Thus the French 
government found itself strengthened at home for 
an open declaration, and stimulated from- abroad 
by the increasing jealousy of its powerfiil rival. 
Lafayette's hand is almost as visible in the treaty 
of alliance as the hand of Franklin himself. 

In all that follows it is still everywhere apparent. 
When he had done all that, for the moment, he 
could do for us here, he went back to France to 
work for us there. " He would strip Versailles 
for his Americans," cried Maurepas, half annoyed, 
half irritated, by his urgent appeals for full and 
effectual succor. But his magnetic enthusiasm 
prevailed, and the succor came. When the work 
in France was done, he hastened back to America, 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 311 

then once more to France, and next to Spain, and 
all for the gloi'ious cause to which he had devoted 
himself, — the cause, to his eyes, of human nature 
and human rights. 

I have said nothing of his services inthefield,— of 
his gallant bearing at the Brandywine ,' of his skil- 
ful retreat from Barren Hill ; of Monmouth, and 
Tiverton Heights, and the brilliant Virginia cam- 
paign of 1781 ; for although in all of them he dis- 
played sound judgment and high military talent, 
there was nothing in them which other generals 
might not have done as well as he. But his pure 
purpose, his noble aims, his intelligent zeal, his 
fervid enthusiasm, his modest bearing, his winning 
amenity, his judicious and persevering application 
to a great and noble purpose of the means and the 
influence which thousands, born to pursuits and 
expectations like his, were wasting in selfish pleas- 
ures and still more selfish ambition, have given him 
a place in American history which, of all those who 
fought or who worked for us, belongs to him alone. 

Steuben found the American army in their win- 
ter huts at Valley Forge. Familiar from his in- 
fancy with the hardships and sufferings of military 
life, he had never seen such suffering before. Had 
he been a mere adventurer, he would have prompt- 
ly retraced his steps, for there was nothing there 
to allure an adventurer of his rank and position. 
Had he been a cold and calculating man, he would 
have found still less to satisfy him in this first A'iew 



812 LECTURE IX. 

of liis future companions. But he was a man of 
warm feelings, tj^uick sympathies, strong impulses. 
While in Europe he had hesitated whether it would 
be worth his while to give up the quiet enjoyments 
of a secure position for the hazards of an adventur- 
ous enterprize. But the prospect of military glory 
had aroused his slumbering amb\,tion. Tiie interest 
which the French ministers and the Spanish am- 
bassador took in the American cause, convinced 
him that it was not a hopeless one. As he thought 
over the scenes of his early life, and recalled the 
excitements of the profession he had loved so dear- 
ly, his imagination kindled, and the glow of youth 
returned. For human liberty and human rights 
he had no enthusiasm, for Frederic's was not the 
school in Avliich such enthusiasm was to be kindled. 
But he had the enthusiasm of his j)rofession. Its 
details were full of interest lor his accurate and 
systematic mind ; its higher principles suggestive 
of questions that afforded him an exhaustless field 
of meditation. x\nd as he meditated, even in the 
midst of the splendid frivolities of a court, he had 
often sighed for an oj)portunity to test them for 
himself from a higher point of view than any which 
he had yet reached. Thus love for his profession, 
the hope of military glory, the j)robabilitv of an in- 
crease of fortune, combined with the persuasion of 
friends whom he trusted, and that restlessness and 
longing for change which, when youth has been 
passed in exciting scenes, is always sure to follow 



THE FORj^iGN ELEMENT. 313 

the first intervals of repose, were the motives which 
brought lilm to America. 

But once here, pride, high sense of honor, and 
hvely sympathies, led him to enter into the cause 
of freedom as if he had never known any other. 
The habits of the soldier had not blunted the sensi- 
Ijilities of the man, and his genial nature drew men 
towards him wherever he went. He was soon on 
an intimate footing with his brother officers ; re- 
spected for his supei'ior knowledge, and loved for 
his warm heart. Like Lafayette, he attached him- 
self especially to Washington ; not, indeed, with 
the tender veneration of the young Frenchman, 
but with a sincere respect and perfect confidence. 

Deference for his opinion was easy, for it was 
always a judicious opinion, frankly expressed, and 
sustained by sound reasons. And confidence in 
his motives and reliance on his justice were easy 
for one whose whole life had been passed in that 
kind of intercourse with his fellow-men which 
brings out in peculiar relief all the qualities essen- 
tial to harmonious relations Ijetween superior and 
inferior. Nor does it deti-act from the sincerity of 
his respect for Washington, although it may be 
justly considered as a proof of the soundness of his 
own judgment, and his vast intellectual superiority 
to such men as Lee, Gates, and Conway, that he 
saw that the surest way to the accomplishmcmt of 
his own designs was by securing for them the 
approbation of the Commander-m-chief. To feel 

14 



314 LECTURE IX. 

that Washington was the only man who could fill 
the first place was to share the feelings and con- 
victions which enabled Greene, and Knox, and 
Hamilton to perform their parts so well in their 
OAvn. 

I have already spoken of the defective organ- 
ization of the American army, — a defectiveness 
which extended from the drill of the common sol- 
dier to the administration of all the ramifications 
of the Quartermaster-General's department. Few 
American oflieers had accurate ideas of manoeuvring 
their men, and there were no books from which they 
could acquire tliem : the elementary ti'eatises of that 
day being almost as imperfect as the treatises upon 
the higher principles of the art. From such sources 
as he could command, each officer had drawn a sys- 
tem of his own ; thus destroying all uniformity in a 
matter of which uniformity is the most essential 
element. Equally imperfect were the system of in- 
spection, involving, among other losses, an annual 
loss of more than five thousand muskets, and the 
system of returns, by which hundreds of names 
were retained on tlie pay-rolls long afler the bear- 
ers of them had let\ the service, and superior 
officers, from the commander of a brigade to the 
Commander-in-chief, kept in dangerous ignoi'anee 
of the number and condition of their men. 

To supply these ileficiencies, to introduce uniform 
systems of mancvuvre, inspection, and returns, to 
infuse a spirit of order ami harmony into all the de- 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 315 

partments of the army, to inspire officers with self- 
reliance and an instinctive perception of whatever 
the moment might reqnire, and men with confi- 
dence in their officers and prompt and intelligent 
obedience to their orders, was the task of Steid)en, 
a task which can only be appreciated by those 
who take the pains to study, in detail, the diffi- 
cuhies with which lie had to contend. 

Pie began by examining his subject thoroughly, 
and preparing a full and accurate plan. With 
this before him, Washington coiild see what he 
proposed, and tell him what it would be safe 
to attempt. A routine soldier, like the Prussian 
general who thought to win the battle of Jena by 
ordering his men, in the lieat of the fight, to ad- 
vance their right sliouldcrs, would have filled reams 
with frivolous details, and proposed a thousand im- 
practicable things. But Steuben's mind was thor- 
oughly imbued with the principles of his art, and 
keeping his great object constantly in view, he re- 
jected many things as useless, postponed many to 
a more fitting time, and without leaving any open- 
ing for negligence or inexactness, n(ln|)te(l his in- 
struction, with marvellous skill, to the wants and 
the condition of the army. 

He fii'st dniCted a hundred and twenty men from 
the line, as a guard for the Commander-in-chief. 
This was his school. Twice every day he drilled 
them himself, teaching them to march, to wheel, 
to bear arms, and even to execute some element- 



316 LECTURE IX. 

ary manoeuvres. Hitherto, the American officers 
had left the care of drilUng the soldiers to their 
sergeants as a thing below the dignity of an officer. 
The sight of a man of Steuben's rank and experi- 
ence, with his glittering star on his breast, march- 
ing and wheeling with common soldiers, taking 
their muskets into his own hands and showing them 
how to handle them, produced a great revulsion in 
their ideas, and presently colonels and lieutenant- 
colonels entered cheerfully into the good work; 
some, perhaps, with the feeling that, like Gil Bias's 
uncle, they Avould thus learn full as much as they 
taught. In a fortnight his school moved and 
looked like soldiers ; and before Monmouth came, 
the leaven from this little nucleus had penetrated 
the whole army. 

Nothing contributed more to his success than the 
good sense with which he adapted his instruction 
to the circumstances, and sometimes even to the 
prejudices, of the men with whom he had to do. 
He had discovered that some officers who began by 
the manual exercise, as the books and all usage 
presci'ibed, had become weary, and given it up in 
disgust. He knew, too, that his work must be 
done quickly, or that it would not be done at all. 
He reversed the order, — began with manoeuvres 
which interested and gave immediate results, and 
ended by the manual and platoon exercise. He 
had observed that in action Pnissian soldiers, 
trained to fire by platoons, and to pride themselves 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 317 

upon loading and firing several times a minute, 
often, after the first discharge, loaded badly and 
fired as awkwardly as their enemy. Therefore, 
without neglecting platoon fire, he put it in its 
true place as a thing of secondary importance. 
Never before had an American army been trained 
like this army of Valley Forge. " Never," said 
Hamilton, when at Monmouth he saw a division in 
full retreat halt at Steuben's command, and form as 
coolly under a close and heavy fire as they would 
have formed on parade, — " never did I know or 
conceive the value of military discipline before." 

The same happy results attended his reforms in 
other departments. Returns were made according 
to prescribed forms, and with close attention to 
minute and accurate specifications. By a glance 
at the foot of a column, Washington could at once 
see how many men he might count upon for actual 
service, how many were sick or disabled, how many 
of each State were enlisted for the war, and how 
many were to leave him at the end of the cam- 
paign. A regular and rigorous inspection brought, 
at stated times, the whole army under the super- 
vision of officers eager to show their zeal in the 
performance of a difficult duty. Till then, as 1 
have already said, there had been an annual loss 
of more than five thousand muskets, and the War 
Office, in making out its estimates for the year, had 
regularly made allowance for that number. In 
the returns, under Steuben's inspectorship, only 



318 LECTURE IX. 

three muskets were missing in one year, and those 
three were accounted for. 

But it was not in dollars and cents that Steuben's 
services should be estimated, although the sums 
which this man, who saved nothing for himself, 
annually saved to his adopted country, might be 
counted by thousands. Like Lafayette, he brought 
us what none but he could have brought ; and in 
looking at the condition in which he found us, it is 
difficult to conceive how we could have held out 
through two more campaigns without the aid which 
we derived from his scientific knowledge and prac- 
tical skill. 

And what was his reward ? An eight years' 
struggle with poverty and its bitter humiliations ; to 
be publicly insulted as living upon national bounty, 
when a tardy justice had compelled Congress to 
acknowledge his claims and buy them off Avith an 
annuity of $ 2500 a year ; a grave so little respect- 
ed, that a public road was run over it, laying its 
sacred contents bare to the rains of heaven, and 
the eye, and even the hand, of vulgar curiosity, 
till individual reverence, performing the part of 
national gratitude, removed the desecrated bones 
to a surer resting-place ; and a name in Amer- 
ican history overshadowed and almost forgotten, 
till a countryman of his own,* making himself, as 

* Frederick Kapp, now a member of the New York bar, and 
whose important contributions to American history have been 
already alluded to in the Preface. 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT. 319 

Steuben luicl done, an Amoriean in heart and feel- 
ing, ■witliout sacrificing the instincts of his nativity, 
gathered together, with German industry and Ger- 
man zeal, the scattered records of his services, 
and portrayed, in faithful and enduring colors, his 
achievements in war, his virtues in peace, his rare 
endowments of mind, and the still nobler quahties 
of his heai't. 



LECTURE X. 

THE MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 

IN speaking of the martyrs of the Revolution, I 
do not undertake, as you will readily conceive, 
to speak of all who, in that day of trial, suffered 
for the truth's sake. A mere catalogue would 
convey no idea of the peculiar merits of the sufferer 
or the relative value of the sacrifice. Nor would 
it be easy to form such a catalogue out of the 
imperfect materials that accident, flill as often as 
an intelligent appreciation of their importance, has 
preserved. Thousands die in battle whom history 
never mentions ; and in all great wars thousands 
are exposed to sufferings worse than death with- 
out even a passing allusion in the general record 
of misery. Here, as elsewhere, all that history 
can do is to select characteristic names, and by 
a faithflil picture of individuals endeavor to give 
a general idea of the classes to which they belong. 
Out of the three hundred and sixteen who served 
their country in Congress from the first assumption 
of the powers of government in 1775 to the inaugu- 
ration <''f the Federal Constitution in 1789, scarce 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 321 

thirty are known in the general history of the 
United States, scarce six in the general history of 
the world. We had twenty-nine major-generals. 
How many of them find a place even in the school 
histories which we put into the hands of our chil- 
dren in order to familiarize them betimes with the 
characters and the services of their fathers? It 
seems sad that so many of our benefactors should 
be forgotten ; for it seems like wilfully rejecting the 
aid which society might derive from that instinc- 
tive desire to be remembered by posterity, which 
nature has implanted in the human heart as one 
of its strongest incentives to virtue. Here it 
is that history most needs the aid of her sister 
arts, — of sculpture, and painting, and poetry ; 
whose appeals to the imagination, not confined as 
hers are by the rigorous laws of evidence, give a 
life to our conceptions of the past, which, wisely 
cherished and judiciously directed, seldom fails 
to exert an important influence upon the fu- 
ture. A noble act embalmed in verse, the form 
and features of a great man preserved in marble, 
the characteristic circumstances of a great event 
illustrated by a skilful pencil, are among the most 
powerful instruments which God has intrusted to 
our hands for the direction of individual aspira- 
tions, and the moulding of national character. 

If this truth had been felt in the United States 
as it was felt in the republics of antiquity, the pub- 
lic squares of Boston would not still have been 
14* u 



322 LECTURE X. 

without a statue of James Otis. A centuiy ago 
no lace was more fauiiliar in your streets than his ; 
no voice so powerfiil in your courts of justice, in 
your halls of legislation, and in the gathering places 
of the people. When Englishmen spoke of the 
dangerous spirit that was daily growing more 
dangerous in the Colonies, the first names that 
came to their lips were the names of Otis and 
Frankhn. When the leaders of sister Colonies 
wished to strengthen their OAvn hands by the 
authority of Massachusetts, they appealed to the 
opinion of Otis as the most foithful expression of 
tlie opinion of his people. 

Few men have possessed in a more eminent de- 
gree the qualities required for the successful guid- 
ance of the earlier periods of a struggle like that of 
om* Revolution. He was a sound lawyer ; deeply 
and extensively read ; and all the first questions of 
our controversy were questions of constitutional 
law. He had read and thought much upon the 
science of government, and brought a thorough 
acquaintance with fundamental principles to the 
discussion of practical questions. He was a close 
reasoner, a vigorous debater, and in the appeals 
and apostrophes of oratory, full of an impetuous 
eloquence that bore down opposition. The enthu- 
siasm that he excited was not a transient feeling, 
dying away with the sound of his voice, but a pro- 
found agitation of the whole nature, penetrating 
the heart, subduing the reason, and leaving every- 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 323 

where deep traces of its passage when the headlong 
torrent had rolled away. He had prepared him- 
self for his professional career by adding to the 
severe discipline of legal study the elegant disci- 
pline of polite literature ; studying his Greek and 
Latin classics as he studied his English classics, and 
makino; himself as familiar with Homer and Virgil 
as Avith Milton and Shakespeare. If Milton sus- 
pended the flow of Paradise Lost in order to dictate 
his " Accidence made Grammar," may we not re- 
gard it as a proof of the vigor of Otis's mind that 
in the midst of the absorbing duties of his profession 
he found leisure to compile treatises on Greek and 
Latin prosody? High-minded, impetuous, iras- 
cible ; with his political opponents haughty and 
overbearing, he was generous, sincere, placable, 
incapable of artifice or deceit ; not a pure intel- 
lect, moving only in the light of reason and warm- 
ing only in the pursuit of abstract truths, but a 
fervid mind, glowing with the sympathetic warmth 
of a kindred heart. 

His labors belong to the first phase of the contest, 
and filling eight years of his active life, give him, 
in America, the place of defender of the constitu- 
tional rights of the Colonies against the encroach- 
ments of the Ministiy and Parliament. He was the 
first to assert that taxation Avithout representation 
was tyranny ; * but his defence was strictly constitu- 

* The cxprcssiou liad been used long before ; Otis was the first 
to revive aud apply it. 



324 LECTURE X. 

tional and fervently loyal ; and althougli he may 
have foreseen that independence, in certain contin- 
gencies, must be the logical consequence of his doc- 
trines, he could not foresee that contingencies so 
easily avoided would so speedily occur. His speech 
in ITGl, against Writs of Assistance, marks an 
epoch in Colonial history ; for it Avas the beginning 
of a form of legal resistance equally adapted to the 
nature of the dispute and the character of the peo- 
ple who were to sustain it. From that moment he 
became the acknowledged leader of the opposition : 
looked up to by his fellow-citizens as the champion 
of their rights ; looked down upon by the Ministry 
as fiictious, turbvilent, and iinmanageable. From 
that moment, too, he devoted himself to public 
life, gradually withdrawing from his profession and 
concentrating his energies upon the question which, 
in his mind, had already assumed the proportions 
of a contest for freedom. And hero, also, began 
those voluntary sacrifices, that persistent self-de- 
nial, which, for a temperament like his, were the 
first pangs of martyrdom. He resigned the oflSce 
of Advocate-General, and \\\\h. it, not merely its 
pecuniary rewards, but a professional distinction 
which he valued more than money. He placed 
himself in open opposition to some of his dearest 
friends, and voluntarily renounced many of the 
associations which were most necessary to his so- 
cial nature. He made bitter enemies at home and 
abroad, and di-ew upon himself the caliunnies and 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 325 

insults most galling to his generous and indepen- 
dent feelings. He renounced all amusements, giv- 
ing himself up to his public duties with an exclu- 
sive attention, which to one who loved society and 
needed recreation as he did, must have required a 
constant exertion of self-denial in one of its rarest 
forms. But the sacrifice which was not too great 
for his Avill proved too great for his strength. His 
health foiled, his overtasked mind became unequal 
to the incessant calls for exertion. At this critical 
moment he was assaulted by a political enemy, 
overpowered by numbers, and wounded in the 
head, — the first, though unfortunately not the last 
attempt in our annals to silence the eloquent voice 
by the violent hand. And now his vehement 
passions often got the control over him in public 
and private. Men wondered at his bursts of 
indignation, and after excusing them for a while 
as the eccentricities of a fervid nature, began to 
suspect and fear, then whisper, and at last say 
openly that James Otis was mad. Was not the 
darkness that settled upon that powerful intellect, 
relieved only at intervals by a softening twilight, 
an imperfect gleam of its original brightness, a 
martyrdom as full of honor, as deserving of eternal 
and grateful remembrance as if he had laid do^vn 
his life upon the battle-field or poured forth his 
blood on the scaffold ? 

When Jamef Otis was pleading the cause of the 
Colonies in the Sugar Act case and the kindred 



326 LECTURE X. 

case of Writs of Assistance, Josiah Quincy, a youth 
of seventeen, was diligently pursuing the studies 
of his class at Harvard. He also brought from col- 
lege a taste for letters, a deep and lasting love for 
the great poets and great orators of anti(inity, but 
enlarged by a wider range of modern literature, 
and refined by a gentler spirit. When . he first 
entered upon the practice of his profession, the 
struggle had reached a crisis of peculiar danger; 
tlie Stamp Act had been repealed, but the latent 
threat contained in the declaratory clause was al- 
ready beginning to work out its inevitable conse- 
quences. Young Quincy loved his profession, and 
in tranquil times would have devoted himself to 
it with undivided enthusiasm. But he loved his 
country ; he saw the danger which at that moment 
menaced her, more, perhaps, than ever before, and, 
with a clear perception of the personal sacrifice and 
personal peril, took his stand, from tlie beginning, 
at the side of her acknowledged champions. And 
soon he was in the first rank, hand in hand with 
Warren and the two Adamses ; respected for his 
calm intrepidity, admired for the fluent eloquence 
of his pen, and trusted for the soundness of his 
judgment. The enthusiasm of high principles per- 
vaded his whole nature, imparting dignity to his 
thoughts and an earnest gravity to his language. 
Will the Colonies unite ? Will they persevere ? 
were the urgent questions of tins moment ; and 
his pen poured out earnest exhortations to firm, 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 327 

united, and energetic resistance. As the difficulties 
increased and the danger grew more imminent, his 
spirit rose higher and his convictions became more 
intense. But there was a still harder trial in store 
for him, — a trial of moral courage under circum- 
stances of singular difficulty. The whole community 
was excited as Boston had never been excited be- 
fore. The first blood had been shed in her streets, 
and they at whose command it was shed were to be 
put on trial for the deed. Blood for blood, life for 
life, was the stern cry of the people ; and who 
should gainsay it ? Who would dare to raise his 
voice in defence of murder, and prove his secret 
alliance with tyranny by open sympathy with its 
minions ? 

Then it was that Josiah Quincy, but a little 
turned of twenty-six, one of the youngest members 
of the bar, filled with a holy sense of the obliga- 
tions of his professional oath, joined his eloquent 
voice to the maturer eloquence of John Adams, 
and, saving the lives of those whom the law held 
innocent, saved his native city from the deep and 
enduring stain of judicial revenge. As we look 
back upon this act in the light of history, we can 
easily conceive that, of all the consoling reflections 
which sustained his spirit in the hour of death, 
there was none more consoling, more sustaining, 
than the remembrance of this deed of justice and 
mercy. But to his immediate contemporaries, and 
before their passions had cooled, it seemed like 



328 LECTURE X. 

a wanton degradation of superior talents, a base 
abandonment of the cause of freedom. Seldom 
has the moral courage of a young man been so 
tried ; never has it come out of the trial more 
resplendent, more worthy of the admiration of 
every true and honorable nature. 

As the contest continued it was readily seen that 
he had not changed his opinion of the rights of the 
Colonists. Upon every important question his pen 
was one of those to which the fi'iends of America 
looked with most confidence and her enemies with 
most dread. He had arguments for the under- 
standing and fervid eloquence for the passions, 
and, above all, unfaltering faith and untiring zeal. 
But neither faith nor zeal could supply the place 
of that physical vigor which nature — so bountiful 
in other things — had denied him. His friends saw 
with deep anxiety the decaying strength, the sunk- 
en cheek, the hectic flush, and all the well-known 
symptoms of the most insidious and inexorable of 
diseases. A journey to the South afforded apparent 
relief, reviving his own hopes with the hopes of his 
friends. Again he gave himself up to his profession 
and his public duties. It was in 1774. The first 
Colonial Congress was about to meet, and all felt 
that the hopes of a successful resistance depended 
in a great measure upon the wisdom and temper 
of its resolves. It was seen, also, by leading minds, 
that the time had arrived when it was neces- 
sary to come to a clear understanding with their 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 329 

friends in England. The SAvord, although loose in 
the scahbai'd, had not yet been drawn. If the min- 
istry could be brought to renounce their insane 
projects, the Colonies would still gladly hold on to 
the connection Avhich, in spite of all that had oc- 
curred, was still endeared to all by habit, tradition, 
association, common laws, and a common language. 
To convey to their English friends an accurate 
statement of their own feelings and aims, and 
to obtain an accurate statement of theirs, had be- 
come an object of the last importance, but an object 
which could not be accomplished by writing, or any 
of the usual methods of communication. In this 
emergency it was resolved to send one of their own 
number to England, — a man familiar with the 
whole subject, with the limits of public opinion 
and the extent of individual opinion, knowing what 
all wished, and equally well apprised of what some 
foresaw. 

For this delicate office, requiring so rare a combi- 
nation of intellectual and moral qualities, — intel- 
lectual, because the first minds and deepest learn- 
ino; of Eno-land were to be met : moral, because all 
the allurements of refined corruption were to be 
encountered, — Josiah Quincy was chosen. On 
the 25th of September he embarked at Salem, 
privately, — for it was not deemed advisable to 
give the partisans of England time to put the gov- 
ernment on its guard ; and on the 8th of November 
he landed at Falmouth. Men could hardly behave 



330 LECTURE X. 

their own eyes wlien they saw him in the streets 
of London. He will surely be arrested, said 
some. He will surely be bought over, said others. 
Franklin, and all who thought as Franklin did, 
and there was one bishop and more than one lord 
who tlionght with him, received Quincy with open 
arms, and listened eagerly and thoughtfully to his 
story of English wrono-s and American resentment. 
Ministers, too, were anxious to see him. Lord 
North caused him to be sought out, for the clear- 
sighted, high-minded man would make no overtures. 
If a thorouoh knowledsie of what America intended, 
a full, accurate, and straightforward account of the 
state of American opinion could have induced the 
ministry to draw back their hands, every obnoxious 
act would have been repealed, every soldier re- 
called. But behind the ministry was the King, — 
self-willed, obstinate, irritated ; and though every 
Avord that Quincy said to North was repeated to 
the King, resentment, not conviction, was the only 
feelino- it awakened. It was evident that govern- 
ment would not recede. 

Saddened, but not disheai'tened, he continued 
his labors, seeking everywhere the friends of 
America and strivino; to confirm them in their 
kind feelings ; meeting her enemies boldly, and 
using argument and eloquence to convince them 
of their error. In the midst of these labors his dis- 
ease returned upon him more severe and menacing 
than ever. Skilful attendance and comparative re- 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 331 

pose gave temporary relief, and liis phj'sician held 
out the promise of recovery if he would only break 
off from his work and give himself up with undi- 
vided attention to the care of his health. 

Meanwhile the storm was gathering. Before it 
broke, the friends of the Colonies, unable to avert 
it, were anxious to send a final warning to their 
American brethren, — a warning which they dared 
not trust to paper. Quincy saw clearly that to 
carry it was going to cex'tain death. Repose, 
the waters of Bath, might give him health ; and 
did he not owe something to his family and friends, 
to an aged father, of whom he was the chief hope, 
to a devoted wife, and children scarcely emerged 
from infancy, of whom he was the only stay ? Had 
he not already sacrificed much while others were 
calmly looking on ? Was it really the call of 
duty, where the hazard was so great, the reasons 
so nearly balanced, the excuse so evident and so 
plausible ? 

All this he felt and saw, and calmly and reso- 
lutely accepted the fatal mission. It was not like 
mounting a breach, for there the hot blood nerves 
the failing limbs, and borne on by the shouts and 
tumult, and fiery whirlwind of battle, men do 
things which at other times they would shrink from 
with horror. But it was placing himself calmly 
and deliberately in death's chosen path, and watch- 
ing with unshrinking eye his swift and sure ad- 
vance. The ship that he sailed in was ill provided 



332 LECTURE X. 

for the accommodation of a sick man ; the weather 
was "inclement and damp" ; there was no friend 
to cheer him with kind Avords or minister to his 
wants. A common sailor sat hy his pillow and 
took down, in a rude hand, his last thoughts and 
wishes : his country still first and foremost among 
them ; and thus, after six weeks of solitary suffer- 
ing, and just within sight of the land where wife 
and children and friends were anxiously awaiting 
his coming, he died. What sacrifice more com- 
plete, what martyrdom more holy ? 

Congress had its martyrs, too, if it be martyrdom 
to die at the post of duty for conscience' sake. The 
small-pox made the duty of delegate a perilous one 
in 1775; and among its victims was one Avhom the 
cause of American freedom could ill spare at that 
critical period of our fortunes. Samuel Ward had 
been Governor of Rhode Island, and when the first 
Continental Congress was chosen, became, with 
Stephen Hopkins, her representative. Re-elected 
to the Congress of 1775, he was soon distinguished 
for his sound judgment and practical familiarity 
with the management of legislative assemblies. 
Rhode Island was hardly large enough to give a 
President to the Congress, but in committee of the 
whole. Ward was regularly called to the chair. 
Few men were more assiduous in the performance 
of their duty ; few were listened to with more 
"respect ; few possessed in a higher degree the 
confidence of their associates. He was among; the 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 333 

zealous advocates of union, although the chief of 
his life had been passed in the political contests of 
a small State. He was among the early friends 
of Independence, foreseeing it long before it could 
be spoken of in debate, and looking hopefully to it 
as the natui'al and inevitable consequence of what 
had already been done. And when his heart was 
warmest in the cause and his hopes highest, he, 
too, died, a victim of the small-pox in its most 
malignant form ; but still more a victim of that 
noble sense of duty which taught him that for the 
civilian, as for the soldier, the post of honor is often 
the post of death. He died, too, before enough 
had been done to insure him a permanent place in 
history; too soon even to allow him to give his 
voice and affix his name to that Declaration of 
Independence for which he had labored so ear- 
nestly. And Rhode Island, like too many of her 
sister States, forgetful of the children who served 
her, when to serve her was to put life and fortune 
in jeopardy, permitted his bones to lie for nearly a 
century in a borrowed grave, and when at last, 
forced from their resting-place by the encroach- 
ments of an expanding population, they returned 
to her bosom, to return to it unheralded, and 
silently mingle with their native soil in the obscu- 
rity of a common burying-ground. 

Domestic life, too, had its martyrs, — men and 
women, who, laboring earnestly in obscure fields, 
sacrificing much, suffering much, drev/ upon them- 



334 LECTURE X. 

selves the vengeance of their country's enemies, 
and sealed their devotion with their blood. Of 
two of these, the love and veneration of then' con- 
temporaries, piously transmitted to posterity, has 
preserved the memory with peculiar freshness : 
James Caldwell, pastor of the First Presbyterian 
Church of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, was distin- 
miished from tlie beo-innino; of the war as an ardent' 
Whig ; and Hannah Ogden, his wife, entering 
warmly into all his feelings, shared with him the 
hardships and dangers of his position. His vehe- 
ment eloquence was directed against the enemies 
of his country so boldly, and acted so powerfully 
upon his hearers, that he was soon marked out as a 
man to be pecuharly dreaded, and a price set upon 
his head. It is easy to conceive what the influence 
of such a man must have been : not only eloquent 
in the pulpit, but living in daily intercourse with 
the soldiers and ministering intelligently to their 
wants. It is easy to conceive, too, what a life of 
peril and excitement the life of this noble couple 
must have been in a State which was so often the 
seat of war, and with the enemy always so near 
their door. More than once he was compelled to 
take his pistols with him into the pulpit, and lay 
them down by the side of his Bible. It was no 
false alarm : though the fatal blow first fell where 
least expected. In the summer of 1780 there was 
constant marching to and fro in the Jerseys, and 
many things to indicate an intention to make them 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 335 

the scene of active operations. For greater secu- 
rity, Mr. Caldwell removed his family to Connect- 
icut Farms, a small village on the site of the 
modern village of Union. On the morning of 
the 6th of June, tidings came that the enemy were 
in motion. Their way led directly through the 
village, and the inhabitants, seizing whatever they 
could most readily take with them, hurried off to 
places of greater security, leaving their houses and 
the greater part of their property to the mercy of 
the invader. Mrs. Caldwell remained. Her hus- 
band was with his regiment at Springfield. Nine 
young children were a heavy burden in sudden 
flight. Surely her sex, their helpless age, would 
protect them. As the British advanced she went 
into a back room, and, seating herself upon the 
bed, with her infant in her arms, silently engaged 
in prayer. The nursery-maid, who had followed 
her into the room, Avith the other children, stood 
near her, looking towards the window, and listen- 
ing to the sounds so full of menace and terror which 
now filled the street of the devoted village. Sud- 
denly she saw a soldier jump over the fence and 
come up to the window : and as she was still tell- 
ing her mistress, he levelled his musket, took de- 
liberate aim, and fired. His musket was loaded 
Avith two balls. Both passed through the body of 
the mother, and she dropped dead in the midst of 
her children. The next day, when her husband 
came, under the protection of a flag, to look for 



336 LECTURE X. 

her, he found the village a smoukU'rini;- lio:qi of 
ruins, and his new-made orphans weeping over 
the lifeless body of their parent. Before two 
yeai's had filled then- course, he too was laid, a 
murdered man, by her side. Their bodies lie in 
the burying-ground of the Broad Street Church 
of Elizabethtown, — a modern church, but built 
upon tlie site of the one under whose roof they 
had so often worshipped their God together. A 
marble obelisk on a granite base marks the spot ; 
decked with a simple inscription, placed there by 
the descendants of those who, knowing and honor- 
ing them in their lives, bequeathed their mem- 
ories as a precious legacy to the grateful rever- 
ence of posterity. 

The Jerseys were the scene of many tragedies, 
even deeper than this. The passage of the Brit- 
ish army in the autumn of 1776 was attended by 
eii'cumstances of demoniac cnielty. All that wan- 
ton barbarity and unbridled passions could do was 
done ; and when the wlm-lwind had passed, the 
survivor in many a domestic circle, happy and 
peaceful till tlieu, looked with longing eyes upon 
those Avho had iallen in the first outbi'eak of A'io- 
leuce, and envied them the calm sleep of their 
graves. 

Thus far I have spoken only of our civil mart}TS, 
— of those who, facing danger in a very different 
form fi'om that wherein it presents itself on the 
battle-field, faced it with a firm and sober fortitude 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 337 

which on the battle-field would have won them 
the name of heroes. And heroes they were, of 
the best and rarest kind, — the heroes of con- 
science, of high principle, of earnest conviction, — 
men who serve the cause of virtue bv filling the 
minds of those who contemplate their characters 
with a noble desire to live as they lived for the 
sake of mankind, even at the peril of dying as they 
died, with nothing but their faith in the ultimate 
triumph of truth to assure them that they had not 
lived in vain. If legislation were always wise, it 
would charge itself with the preservation of these 
men's memories as with one of its highest duties. 
It would fill ]niblic ]ilaces with their busts and 
statues ; it would seek occasion for bringing their 
names forward, and strenothenino- itself for good 
bv sliowino- wdiat rewards true greatness brings. 
It would employ all its means, and take advantage 
of every fitting occasion, to dwell upon their vir- 
tues, that, by familiarizing the minds of the people 
with them as children, it might teach them to imi- 
tate them and emulate them as men. 

In the next class, the first name that presents 
itself to every mind is that of Joseph Warren. It 
is too well known to require illustration or to jus- 
tify me in dwelling upon it. It awakens the mem- 
ory of a grief so deep and so universal that we feel 
as if we could almost weep for him as our fiithers 
wept for him eighty-six years ago ; and it comes to 
us with such a familiar sound, with such lively asso- 

15 T 



338 LECTURE X 

ciations of puiv motives, high aims, warm aftoctions, 
and rotinoJ tastes, that while we think ot" him as of 
one who died tor his countrv, we feel towards him 
as towards a friend who still shares with us our 
moments of highest aspiration and noblest resolve. 
It is impossible to say what Warren might have 
done for us had his life been spared. But it is 
easy to see that few lives have been so fruitful of 
good as his heroie death. It was the baptism of 
blood, — the oonseeration of a holy cause. Wher- 
ever the story was told it awakened mingled sen- 
sativ)ns o'i reverence and love and indignation. 
Bunker Hill became a distinct and definite object 
in mens minds, — not only for the fair town that 
lay smouldering at its foot, not only for the dead 
that were strewn like the new-mown hay upon its 
slopes, but more than all these for him, — for him 
that had fallen there in the pride and hope and 
vigor of manhood, with the name 0*1 countrv on 
his lips. 

The name of Xathan Hale is less known. He 
was too young to take an active part in the discus- 
sions which had given Warren celebrity before 
the sword was actually drawn, and held too sub- 
ordinate a position when he entered the armv to 
attiact the attention which he deserved. Like 
Quincy, he was fresh from college, loved his 
books, and looked upon literature as tlie source 
from which his purest pleasures were to flow. To 
a naturallv refined anil delicate mind he had added 



3fARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION: 339 

tlie refinement of diligent cultivation. Nature had 
given him lively sensibilities and a warm heart, 
and he had done all that he could do, by the aid 
of poetry and philosophy, to make them subservi- 
ent to the duties of life as well as to its jileasures. 
His ambition for distinction was controlled by a 
profound sense of duty, Avhich led him to feel that 
no distinction could satisfy the aspirations of his 
mind which did not satisfy the dictates of his con- 
science. " I wish to be useful," were his words 
to a friend who was endeavoring to dissuade him 
from undertaking what the Avorld called a dis- 
honorable thing, although Washington had said 
that it was indispensable to the safety of the army, 
— "I wish to be useful, and every kind of service 
necessary to the public good becomes honorable by 
being necessary." 

With such sentiments we shoidd natm'ally look 
for him where we actually find him, — at the' 
camp before Boston, studying his new profession 
with the same zeal with which he had studied his 
classics, and trying to prepare his men, as he was 
preparing himself, for the full and satisfactory per- 
formance of their parts. Discipline was one of 
the first wants of the army, and he tried to make 
his company distinguished by the excellence of 
their discipline. A simple and uniform method of 
clothing the ai'my was greatly needed ; and turning 
his thoughts to the subject, he invented a uniform 
for his own men, simple, convenient, and com- 



340 LECTURE X. 

fortable. Eveiywhere within his sphere his duty 
was performed in that thorough and satisfactory 
manner which inspires confidence and commands 
respect. But no opportunity for distinguished ser- 
vice offered itself: he was with the regiment that 
Washington took over to Brooklyn during the 
battle of Long Island, but not in the battle itself. 
And when he looked back upon the year that he 
had passed in the army, he felt that he had as yet 
done nothing for his country. When, therefore, 
Colonel Knowlton, calling tlie officers of his regi- 
ment together, told them that General Washing- 
ton wanted an intelligent and trusty man to enter 
the enemy's lines, and ascertain their position, 
numbers, and designs, he saw that the time which 
he had looked forward to was come, for that there 
was a woi'k to do which even brave men might 
shrink from without incTU'ring the suspicion of 
cowardice. The moment that the meeting of 
officers broke up he went directly to the tent 
of his friend and classmate, Captain Hull, and told 
him what was wanted and what he intended to do. 
" You are not fit for it," said Hull ; " you are too 
frank and open for disguise. This is the work of 
a spy, — a man whom men use because they need 
him, but whom they put to death with ignominy 
if they detect him." It was then that Hale uttered 
that remarkable profession of faith which I have 
already quoted : — " Every kind of service neces- 
sary to the public good becomes honorable by be- 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 341 

ing necessary. If the exigencies of my country 
demand a peculiar service, its claims to jKn-form 
that service are imperious." And then, after lis- 
tening to his friend's remonstrances and entreaties, 
he paused, took his hand affectionately, and, saying, 
" I -will reflect, and do nothing which I do not feel 
to be my duty," went his way. Hull soon missed 
him from camp, and his heart told him too surely 
whither he was gone, and what the inevitable fate 
of one so open and artless would be. 

A few days later an English officer came to the 
American camp with a flag and told Hamilton that 
Captain Hale had been arrested the day before 
and hanged that morning as a spy. Hull sought 
the officer at once and learnt from his lips the short 
and melancholy story of his friend. 

Hale had performed his task, examined the Brit- 
ish works, made sketches, collected information, 
and, with his papers concealed upon his person, 
was upon the point of stepping into a boat to make 
his way back to the army, when he was seized and 
carried before General Howe. Further conceal- 
ment was impossible ; and when we remember his 
character we can easily conceive that it was with 
a feeling of relief from odious constraint that he 
boldly raised his head and avowed his rank and 
purpose. In so clear a case no trial was deemed 
necessary. He was condemned to die. For con- 
venience' sake, not mercy's, a single night was 
given him, for it was now evening, and Howe's 



342 LECTURE X. 

quarters at a distance from the city. He passed 
that night in the green-house of the Beekman 
mansion, which ten years ago was still standing 
"with all its associations of colonial New York. He 
asked to see a clergyman, but was denied, — for a 
Bible, but it was refused him. Next morning he 
was led out to death. Did he falter? did he shrink? 
Would he have Avished that fatal step untaken ? 
Cunningham, the Provost Marshal, would have glad- 
ly had us think so. But near Rutgers's orchard — 
one of whose apple-trees was to supply a gallows — 
an English ofRcer had pitched his marquee, and 
when he saw the preparations, he asked Cunning- 
ham to allow his victim to come and sit in it till 
all was ready. " He was calm," said this unim- 
peachable witness, " and bore himself with gentle 
dignity in the consciousness of rectitude and high 
intentions. He asked for writing materials, which 
I furnished him, and wrote two letters, one to his 
mother and one to a brother officer." Shortly af- 
ter, he was summoned to the gallows. All that he 
could add to the bitterness of death, Cunningham 
added ; and when he heard the last words of his 
victim — "I only regret that I have but one life to 
lose for my country " — he resolved in his heart 
that the rebels should never know that they had a 
man in their army who could die with so much 
firmness, and destroying his letters, destroyed, as 
he fondly supposed, the last and only record of his 
dvincr sentiments. But Providence had not willed 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION: 343 

it so ; and in this hour of desolation raised him up 
a friendly "witness even from among his enemies ; 
for it so chanced that the oliicer Avho had supphed 
him with pen and paper, was sent with a flag into 
the American camp on the afternoon of that very 
day, and from his hps, not from uncertain rumors 
or doubtful reports, Hull received the unques-' 
tionable testimony. 

A parallel has often been drawn between Hale 
and Andr^. But it is doing injustice to the self- 
denying American, who for conscience' sake under- 
took a task which, even if fully successful, could 
bring no reward but the sense of duty performed, 
with the aspiring Englishman, who for ambition's 
sake undertook a task which promised increase of 
rank and the chance of military distinction. Hale 
put on a disguise for a few hours under the impulse 
of a strong and generous motive. Andrd carried 
on a treacherous correspondence for months, avail- 
ing himself artfully of every means to render it 
effective. Plad Hale succeeded in reaching the 
American camp, he would have made his report to 
his immediate commander and returned silently 
to the performance of his subordinate functions. 
Had Andrd succeeded in reaching New York, his 
achievements would have been hailed by the Com- 
mander-in-chief as a brilliant display of energy, 
and his name transmitted to the ministry for 
acknowledgment and reward. They were both 
young, both accomplished, both engaging in their 



344 LECTURE X. 

manners and winning in their address. Bnt the 
Enghsh officer's act was coiniected with a design 
which, if successful, might have protracted the war 
for years, even if it had not turned the scale against 
us ; thus his name became permanently associated 
with a great enterprise and a great treason. The 
enormity of Arnold's villany so overshadowed 
every subordinate circumstance that men never 
paused to weigh the measure of condemnation 
which a strict morality might mete out to his 
accomplice. They saw only the gigantic traitor, 
employing for the destruction of his confiding 
country the means which she had intrusted to 
his hands for her protection. They saw only 
that, while his presence of mind had put him 
beyond the reach of punishment, he had left a vic- 
tim behind him, a young man full of talents and 
accomplishments ; and as they looked upon him 
their hearts were saddened at the thought that 
such a one must lay down his young life while the 
master criminal lived in security. But they did 
not see that Andrd's success involved the sacrifice 
of many innocent men, who. in that midnight as- 
sault, wherein every obstacle was removed before- 
hand, would have been led like victims to the 
slaughter. They did not see that in calmly dis- 
cussino; its details durinor the lonji hours of that 
September night, under the pensive light of the 
stars, and within sound of the soft ripple of the 
Hudson, he had been calmly lavino; a snare for 



MAIiTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 345 

the lives of gallant men ; calmly premeditating, 
not an attack Avith equal chances upon men who 
might hope to defend themselves, but the slaughter 
of unsuspecting victims, under cu*cumstances which, 
eivino; them no chances of defence, would, if thino-s 
were always called by their true names, be branded 
as deliberate murder. 

To Hale's undertakino- no such miilt is attached. 
The only life that he put in jeopardy was his own. 
It was an individual act, by which his country 
might gain much, without hazard, — a self-imposed 
sacrifice, wherein he hazarded all, without the 
chance or the expectation of reward, as rewards 
are measured by human ambition. Should he 
succeed, — should he escape the other perils of 
war, and live to see a fireside of his own and chil- 
dren of his own around it, he might tell them, 
perhaps, hoM-, when the patriot army Avas sore be- 
set, and Washington himself at a loss on which 
side to look for the coming of his enemy, he had 
gone secretly among them at the hazard of his life, 
discovered their plans, revealed them to his Gen- 
eral, and relieved that noble mind of one of its 
cares. But to his bi'other officers he could say 
nothino;. Congress, Washino-ton himself, mioht 
never know what he had done; and unless some 
chance, independent of any influence this act could 
have, should raise him higher, he might end his 
military service in the same subordinate station in 
which he had begun it. If acts are to be judged 

15* 



346 LECTURE X. 

by the sacrifices they impose, and actors by their 
motives, there is but little room for a pai'allel be- 
tween Andrd and Hale. But the servant of the 
king sleeps amid poets, and orators, and statesmen, 
and heroes, in the hallowed precincts of Westmin- 
ster Abbey ; while an insignificant fort in the har- 
bor of New Haven is the only spot which pre- 
serves the name of the republican martyr. 

No occurrence of the war excited deeper or 
more general indignation than the official murder 
of Isaac Hayne of South Carolina; for it was 
regarded not merely as a wanton sacrifice of a 
worthy man, but as a brutal attempt on the part 
of our adversaries to retain by the threat of the 
halter an authority which they had not been able 
to preserve by the sword. The capitulation of 
Charleston in 1780 had thrown a large body of 
Carolina militia into the hands of the. enemy, but a 
special provision in the articles of capitulation had 
secured them the position of prisoners on parole. 
The British arms continued successful ; the State 
was overrun ; and, to confirm his triumph, the 
English commander called upon all the militiamen 
on parole, not protected by the fourth clause of 
the capitulation, to make an immediate choice be- 
between a return to their allegiance and close 
confinement. Had it been the intention of the 
conqueror to adhere to his pledge, Hayne would 
have been fully protected by the article so ex- 
pressly specified. But, in open violation both of 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 317 

its spirit and its letter, he was summoned to ac- 
knowledge himself a British subject or go to pris- 
on. The moment when this alternative was laid 
before him was one in which the stoutest heart 
might have faltered, for the small-pox was in his 
family, and to leave his wife and children was hke 
consignino; them with his own hands to the grave. 
He hastened to Charleston, and, expressly stipu- 
lating that he should not be called upon to take up 
arms against his country, made the fatal acknowl- 
edgment. The wife for whose protection he had 
taken this unwelcome step, died ; he had already 
lost one child ; a second soon followed its mother 
to the grave. Soon, too, he found that his stipu- 
lation, though clear, positive, and accepted by 
the British commander at the time, was no pro- 
tection from repeated summons to join in an active 
defence of the English su2:)remacy. To these sum- 
mons, though often repeated, and accompanied by 
the threat of imprisonment, he opposed a firm 
refusal. 

Then came Greene's advance into South Caro- 
lina, and the gradual recession of the English 
forces. Soon the region round Hayne's plantation 
was in the hands of the Americans. The English 
general not only was unable to enfoi'ce the alle- 
giance he had imposed, but even to protect those 
who had accepted it from their irritated and vic- 
torious countrymen. Hayne's sentiments were 
well known. It was well known that his heart 



348 LECTURE X. 

was with the Americans, and that nothing but his 
strong love for his family had induced him to accept 
the hard terms so iinjustlj imposed upon him at a 
time when, unable to do anything for his country, 
he might still do so much for them. Yet, without 
concealing his wishes, he restrained his zeal until 
the retreat of the enemy made it necessary to de- 
cide whether he would follow them to Charleston 
for a nominal protection, or obey the dictates of 
his conscience and join his countiymen. A calm 
examination of his position convinced him that an 
obligation of qualified allegiance, assumed because 
the district he lived in was in the hands of the 
enemy, ceased to be binding from the moment that 
they who imposed it were stripped of their suprem- 
acy ; that having acknowledged himself a British 
subject for the purpose, openly avowed, of giving 
his personal attention to his family on the Edisto, 
and with an express declaration that he would not 
fight against his country, he was no longer a Brit- 
ish subject when the Edisto had passed under the 
control of the Americans, and he was summoned, in 
violation of his express stipulation, to take up arms 
against them. He repaired to the American camp, 
was welcomed, placed at the head of a militia regi- 
ment, surprised, and made prisoner by militia neg- 
ligence. 

The English commander wanted a victim, and 
here was one. I will not follow the story through 
its sad details: the un^.eemlv haste with which his 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 349 

life was hunted down, the mockery of the forms 
of justice, the efforts of friends to save him, the 
calmness with which he received the sentence of 
death, the fortitude with which he met it, that 
parting injunction to his son — a boy of thirteen — 
to come for his body to the foot of the gallows and 
give it decent burial. To tell this is the office of 
history, and we have not room for it here. What 
I wish to dwell upon is the spirit which this mar- 
tyrdom awakened, and which, if the war had con- 
tinued, might have swelled our list of martyrs by 
hundreds. 

For when this occurred the American army was 
encamped at the high hills of Santee, resting them- 
selves after a long and exhausting campaign. Thus 
the tidings reached them at a time when they had 
leisure and opportunity to discuss and compare 
their opinions. The indignation was universal ; 
there was a common cry for vengeance. But 
there was but one way by which they could 
avenge him, and that was by retaliation. Greene's 
resolution was taken instantly. This must be the 
last judicial murder. To strike at the American 
loyalists would produce no effect. English officers 
themselves must be made to feel that the lives of 
Americans would no longer be taken with impu- 
nity. But at this time a large body of American 
prisoners who had been regularly exchanged were on 
their way from St. Augustine to the North, and to 
give full time for their safe arrival he was compelled 



350 LECTURE X. 

to conceal his intention for a wliile even from his 
own army. The officers became uneasy. They 
knew that in asking for retahation they were doub- 
ling their own hazards ; for to be taken prisoner — 
and who could secure them against the chances of 
war ? — woukl become a sentence of death. But 
they were resolved at every hazard to enforce the 
laws by which civilization has stript war of many of 
its horrors ; they were resolved that the name of 
American and the commission of Congress should 
henceforth be a protection from the wantonness of 
systematic persecution. To give full and solemn 
expression to their sentiments, they drew up an ad- 
dress to their commander ; Avhich I will not attempt 
to analyze, for analysis would give you a very im- 
perfect idea of its firm and magnanimous spirit and 
the calm dignity of its language. I will read it to 
you from the original, for the paper which I hold 
in my hand is the original itself. (See p. 458.) 

I have already said that Greene had resolved 
upon retaliation the moment he heard of Hayne's 
murder. But the threat, supported by the battle 
of Eutaw and the rapid success of the American 
arms, proved sufficient ; and this was the last in- 
stance of that barbarous policy, more unwise even 
than barbarous, which, during the brief duration 
of the English supremacy, had stained the soil of 
Carolina with so much innocent blood. 

Thus far I have spoken of individuals, — of 
forms which stand out in bold relief in the trans- 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 351 

parent light of history. But what shall I say of 
the thousands whose sufferings, blended in one 
common lot, are known only as the victims of the 
jail and the prison-ship ? Never were souls more 
tried than theirs ; never was the crown of martyr- 
dom won by tortures harder to bear than the tor- 
tures which they bore from week to week and month 
to month, till nature, sinking under the protracted 
agony, sought shelter in the grave. And that 
grave itself a few inches of sand, which the first 
ebbings and flowings of the tide washed away, 
leaving all that hunger, and foul air, and the dis- 
eases which they engender, had spared them of 
the image of their Maker to crumble and bleach 
in the wind and sun. On the shores of Wallabout 
Bay, alone, it is supposed that more than eleven 
thousand received this mockery of burial ; and if 
we add to these the victims of the sugar-houses 
of New York, of the prisons and prison-ships of 
Charleston, and St. Augustine, what fearful pro- 
portions does the list of our martyrs assume ! 

It is difficult, nay almost impossible, to form an 
idea of these sufferings. The imagination sinks 
powerless before this canvas, crowded with thou- 
sands of human forms, melting in lurid light into 
one ghastly mass of human misery. Nor would I 
dwell upon them, if I did not feel that forge tfuln ess 
of the debt we owe the sufferers has had a large 
part in producing the sufferings of our own hoiur 
of trial. Let us take one, therefore, and fix our 



352 LECTURE X. 

attention upon him, that in his sufferings we may 
reahze more distinctly what thousands suffered 
with him, and in every suffering that we assign 
him let us be careful to add nothing which every 
individual of them all did not actually endure. 
Shall we choose him from town or country ? 
There were hundreds and hundreds from each. 
Let him have come, then, from the pure air of his 
own fields, where he left his plough in the furrow 
to seize his fowling-piece or gird on the sword 
which his father had worn with honor in tlie old 
French war. Thrown down in the shock of bat- 
tle he awakes from his trance to find himself a 
prisoner pent up in a close room with a crowd of 
prisoners. Houi's pass, but no one brings them 
food or water. Night comes ; in the stifling atmos- 
phere, thirst, such as he had never dreamed of be- 
fore, burns into his veins. He begs for a drop of 
water, but the sentinel at the door breaks out in a 
song full of mockery. He struggles to the win- 
dow and tries for a breath of pure air, but the 
sentry thrusts him back at the pomt of the bayonet. 
Another day, another night, — food comes at last, 
— bread that he can hardly break, meat that even 
in this extremity he turns from with loathing. But 
O what a delicious draught in that cup of water ! 
though it is water which, if not taken from a mud- 
dy pool, has stood in filthy vessels exposed to the 
sun till all its life-giving freshness was gone. Then 
a weary mai'ch to the river-side, — weaiy, because 



MARTYRS OF Tllh' REVOLUTION. 353 

he is already faint with hunger ; but, at least, it is 
a marcli in the pure air ; and how sweetly does 
its freshness float around his brow, and check the 
fever that had begun to kindle its slow fires in 
his veins ! Faint and exhausted as he is he would 
have gladly kei)t on a few miles farther, for the 
sake of that free-drawn breath and the sight of 
something besides despau'ing faces, the sound of 
something besides despairing groans. But here he 
stands on the river's brink, and out there at an- 
chor, securely moored, stem and stern, lies the hulk 
of a huge man-of-war ; the masts and bowsprit 
gone, but with a signal pole midships ; a small tent 
on the stern to screen the sentry from the sun ; 
something rising above her bulwarks, he cannot 
guess what, though he will soon find why it was 
put there ; and the portholes all open, and all filled 
with human faces, looking out, some listlessly, some 
eagerly, all hopelessly. He is soon among them. 
A long, fixed staging, leading from the water's edge, 
receives him after a few strokes of the oar. The 
sentry at the gangway passes him roughly down ; 
name, regiment, description of his person, are en- 
tered upon the register : the formalities are all 
over ; he is a prisonei', and this is the Jersey. 

He had good clothes on when he was taken, 
but they have given him rags instead ; a little 
money, — they would have taken that, too, but 
when he saw them stripping his comrades he hid 
his money in his mouth till he had got his tatters 

w 



354 LECTURE X. 

on, and then lie knew it was safe. He cannot join 
the groups on the main-deck, for he longs to be 
alone. But as he approaches the hatchway to go 
down below he is met by such a stifling current of 
foul air that he staggers back gasping for breath. 
Anything but this. An old prisoner observes him, 
and tells him that that is the air he must sleep in. 
By degrees, as he moves about among the groups, 
and what with question and reply, he begins to 
make acquaintances, — tells his story, hears theirs. 
Dinner is served out. With an appetite shai'pened 
by almost three days of starvation, he svTcceeds in 
eating a little of the sour bread ; after a few days 
more he will begin to taste the tainted meat. And 
thus thinking over the past, not dai'ing to look for- 
ward to the future, his first day wears slowly on. 
And what a night is that which follows ! Forced 
down into that pestilential air, where fever and its 
kindred diseases love to make their dwelling, he 
lays him on filthy straw and tries to sleep. But 
the groans of the pi'isoner beside him will not let 
him sleep ; yet lie he must, for he cannot take a 
step without treading on the recumbent form of 
some fellow-sufferer, only by so much less wi-etched 
than himself inasmuch as he has become familiar 
with these sights and sounds and can sleep in de- 
spite of them. How gladly, yet with what a heavy 
heart and aching head, does he see the return of 
day ! With it comes the rough voice of the guard 
from above : " Rebels, bring up your dead." And 



MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. 355 

while he looks about liim for the meaning of such 
a summons he sees a general rising and moving. 
Some stoop down over the bed next them and lift 
up its tenant, — the corpse that became a corpse 
while they slept, — and carry it to the hatchway to 
be thrown into the boat and carried off for burial. 
He remembers the groans that kept him awake so 
long, and turns to the place at his side they came 
from. There will be no more groaning from those 
lips, — livid, clammy, but O how fearfully eloquent 
in their appeal from tyranny to God ! He shudders ; 
a chill runs over him as he thinks that perhaps not 
veiy far off there might be a mother, a wife, chil- 
dren, who would have deemed it a blessed privi- 
lege to press one parting kiss upon them before 
they were consigned forever to the silence and dark- 
ness of the grave. But he has no time for these 
thoughts now, though they will come back to him 
at night when he again lays him down in the com- 
pany of the dying. Now he must repress all his 
natural feelings, and help carry that body to the 
companion-way and see it thrown headlong into 
the boat. 

But enough; I have exaggerated nothing; I 
have added nothing, although I have suppressed 
and omitted much. I have not dared to dip 
my pencil deep enough in the fearful elements of 
which this picture is composed to paint it in all its 
shocking realities. But if, with the picture such as 
I have it before your minds, you add that there 



356 LECTURE X. 

was not one of all these sufFei*ers who might not 
have purchased instant freedom by renouncing his 
country, you will see what kind of spirit that was 
which animated the martyi's of the American Revo- 
lution. And whence was that spirit drawn but 
from the conviction, so deep-rooted and so clearly 
expressed, that they were suffering for the cause 
of humanity : sacrificing themselves that their chil- 
dren and their children's children might hve united 
and free in a land consecrated to Freedom and 
Union I 



LECTURE XI. 

LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 
PART I. — PROSE. 

GREAT revolutions, being attended by extraor- 
dinary intellectual activity, are generally 
favorable to the cause of literature. When the 
public mind is kept in a constant state of agitation, 
the mind of the individual not only partakes of the 
general excitement, but is often roused to a degree 
of exertion which it would have been incapable of 
in times of public tranquillity. All the great land- 
marks of thought are lost ; principles that seemed 
beyond the reach of doubt are called in question ; 
immoderate hope and immoderate fear prevail by 
turns, often succeeding each other with inconceiv- 
able rapidity ; and the mind, tossed to and fro 
without respite, now grasping at one phantom and 
now at another, is equally eager in whatever direc- 
tion it turns, and as bold in its efforts to reason as 
in its wildest flights of imagination ; and when 
at last the commotion ceases, and society puts on 
its new form, the intellectual impulse still con- 
tinues, and the new ideas which have been brought 



358 LECTURE XL 

up from depths nevei' reached before become the 
starting-pomts from which new generations set 
forth upon new inquiries. 

But revohition, in order to give this impulse to 
literature, must receive its own impulse from those 
deeper sources in which thought and feeling are 
blended. It is only when men think with their 
hearts, if I may borrow an expression from the 
father of verse,* that their faculties are thoroughly 
roused. And to think with our hearts requires 
that the subject should be one from whicli, when 
once started, there is no escape. It must follow us 
wherever we go, meet us at every turn, intertwine 
itself with all the relations of life, and infuse its 
spirit into all our actions. 

This complete possession of the human soul and 
absolute control of the human will does not belong 
to questions which have their beginning and their 
end in this life. Individuals may give themselves 
up to ambition or pleasure, classes may become 
absorbed in the pursuit of power or gain, but there 
are recesses in the human heart which neither the 
ambition of power nor the ambition of wealth can 
penetrate ; and, until these recesses are reached, 
it is impossible to arouse the Avhole body of society 
to self-denial and continuous exertion. 

Wicklirte was contemporary with Chaucer. The 
introduction of the Reformation was followed by 

* "Etos 6 Tavff app-aivf Kara (ppeva Koi Kara ffvpov. 

Iliad, I. 193. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION: 359 

the most original period of l^Jno-lisli literature. 
The deep convictions of the English Revolution 
clow -with intense cnei'SY in the " Paradise Lost." 
Even that less original development which has 
often been called the Augustan age of English 
literature followed close upon the last great up- 
risino; of Protestant zeal in Eno-hmd in 1688. 
And never before in the whole course of its his- 
tory did the French mind display such fertility and 
viiior as durino- its lono; contest with that arrogant 
spirit which, manifesting itself first in the domain 
of religious thought and then in the broader field 
of civil life, claimed equally in both the right of 
controlling man's action in the name of his Maker. 
But the American Revolution, with all its ear- 
nestness of purpose, with all its strength of con- 
viction, belongs, in its intellectual relations, to the 
domain of reason rather than to the domain of 
feeling. It was the expression of a belief founded, 
indeed, upon those instinctive suggestions in which 
the heart and mind act together, but a belief which 
appealed for confirmation to the deductions of rig- 
orous logic and the facts of positive history. It 
was a legal contest, beginning with the statute- 
book, passing logically to Grotius and Puffendoi*flF, 
and never, even in the hour of intensest excite- 
ment, losing sight of the acknowledged landmarks 
of thought. Hence, while it brought out in full 
light principles overlaid till then by old forms and 
customs, it started no new theories, opened no new 



860 LECTURE XL 

fountains of feeling, left the floodgates of passion 
untouched. Its heroes were thoughtful, reasoning 
men, accustomed to stand on firm ground, and who 
felt that their new position could only be made ten- 
able by connecting it logically Avith the old. They 
came not to create, but to eliminate ; not to grasp 
at the future by speculative combinations, but to 
remove irom their own path — and thereby from 
their children's also — the obstacles which had so 
long impeded the natural development of acknowl- 
edged laws. But while tliey thought soberly, they 
thought also boldly, sin-inking from no remote con- 
sequence of a principle, however n']mgiiant to 
connnon opinion ; asserting in their largest com- 
prelu'iision tlie conclusions to ■which they had been 
led by close adherence to the laws of reasojiiiig, al- 
though that unreserved assertion sometimes j)laced 
them in painful contradiction with their actual 
position. And thus they sometimes reached, by a 
severe logic, heights Avhich are seldom reached 
without a vigorous effort of imagination. 

When Jefferson asserted as the justification of 
our national existence that all men are born free 
and equal, he merely reduced to its simjilest form 
of expression that fundamental trutli which had 
been gradually making itself clearer to logical 
minds ever since the gathering at Runnymede.* 

* Tlic progress of the Romnn " Omnes lioniincs natura acqua- 
les sunt " from a " legal rule to a political dogma," lias becu 
sketched with n rapid but a masterly haud by Maiue iu his 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 361 

And when Washington accepted it, he frankly 
accepted with it its natural corollary, although 
that corollary involved a radical change in the 
oro'anization of labor; when Greene accepted it, 
he followed it to its practical consequence, and 
recorded it as his deliberate conviction : "On the 
subject of slavery, nothing can be said in its de- 
fence." 

But in all this it Avas the reason which deduces 
and binds together, not the imagination which 
creates and stimulates, that was the guide. No 
fermentation of thought, no wrestling with stub- 
born doubts, Avas required to reach those truths. 
Nowhere in its progress did the mind find itself 
shrinking and shuddering on the brink of awful 
precipices, but ever looking forth rather from 
serene heights over a path which still led onward 
and upward. 

Hence, the literature of our Revolution was 
chiefly a literature of investigation, reasoning, and 
sober thought. Men drew their inspiration from 
the statute-book, reached their theories by labori- 
ous induction, and seldom, when warming into 
eloquence, lost sight of rule and precedent. If we 
go to them for bold images, original forms, start- 
ling conclusions, we shall be greatly disappointed. 

recent History of Ancient Law, Ch. IV. pp. 88 et seq. of tha 
American edition ; a work of the highest authority in itself, and 
which has acquired new value by the admirable introduction 
prefixed to it by the American editor, Professor T. W. Dwight, 
of Columbia College. 
16 



862 LECTURE XI. 

But they are able expounders of fundamental 
truths, skilful illustrators of vital principles, ear- 
nest advocates of human rights. They wrote, not 
to build up a literature, but to defend a holy 
cause ; and their works, like those massive founda- 
tion walls on wliit'h modern Ivomans have built 
the palaces of a new society and the temples of a 
new faith, carry us back to an age of strong men 
building for eternity. 

First among them, and still unsurpassed as a 
writer of pure English in a simple, graceful, and 
natural style, was 

" Your island city's greatest son," — 

Benjamin Franklin. To write well, as I have 
hinted in another Lecture, was one of the earliest 
objects of his ambition ; and starting with the con- 
viction that " true ease in writing comes from art," 
he set himself to the study of this art as he set 
himself to the study of the art that he expected to 
earn his bread by, with an enthusiasm tempered 
by judgment. Let me give you the story in his 
own words. 

" About this time I met with an odd volume of 
the ' Spectator.' I had never before seen any of 
them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was 
much delighted with it. I thought the writing 
excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. 
With that view I took some of the papers, and 
maldnjx short hints of the sentiments in each sen- 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 363 

tence, laid tliem by a few days, and then, without 
looking at the book, tried to complete the papers 
again by expressing each hinted sentiment at 
length, and as fully as it had been expressed be- 
fore, in any suitable words that should occur to 
me. Then I compared my ' Spectator ' with the 
original, discovered some of my faults and cor- 
rected them. But I found I wanted a stock of 
words, or a readiness in recollecting and using 
them, which I thought I should have acquired 
before that time, if I had gone on making verses, 
since the continual search for words of the same 
import, but of different length to suit the measure, 
or of different sound for the rhyme, would have 
laid me under a constant necessity of searching for 
variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in 
my mind, and make mc master of it. Therefore I 
took some of the tales in the ' Spectator,' and 
tui'ned them into verse ; and after a time, when I 
had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them 
back again. 

" I also sometimes jumbled my collection of 
hints into confusion ; and, after some weeks, en- 
deavored to reduce them into the best order before 
I began to form the full sentences and complete 
the subject. This was to teach me method in the 
arrangement of the thoughts. By comparing my 
work with the original, I discovered many faidts 
and corrected them ; but I sometimes had the 
pleasure to fancy that, in certain particulars of 



364 LECTURE XI. 

small consequence, I had been fortunate enough 
to improve the method or the language ; and this 
encouraged me to think that I might in time come 
to be a tolerable Englisli writer, — of "which I was 
extremely ambitious." * 

If there were time to comment upon this narra- 
tive, there are two points in it upon which I would 
gladly enlarge. One is, that Franklin chose for 
himself a model, and studied it thoroughly, — stud- 
ied it as a great sculptor studies the antique ; and 
yet, like the great sculptor, put so much of his 
own into his works that all that reminds you of his 
master in them is that fine flavor of genuine nature 
which they both possess in an almost equal degree. 
And the other, that they who, in their idle railing 
at Latin and Greek, cite Franklin's style as a proof 
of what mere English can do, forget that, if Frank- 
lin did not sit directly at the feet of Xenophon 
and Cicero, the master at whose feet he sat was 
one of the most diligent and faithful of their dis- 
ciples. 

One of the first things that strikes you in Frank- 
lin's writings is that he always has something to 
say. His sentences are not crowded with ideas 
like Bacon's ; but, from the moment that you be- 
gin to read, yon find yourself under the influence 
of another mind ; and yet that influence is exerted 
so gently, his thoughts steal into your mind with 
such mild persuasiveness and blend so readily with 

* Sparks's Franklin, Vol. I. p. 18. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 365 

your tliouglits, that it is only when you come to 
examine yourself upon the subject, and recall the 
actual amoiuit of knowledge you set out with, that 
you perceive how much you have added to it and 
what an impulse he has given you. His words 
are simple, — the words of common life, neither 
bigotedly Saxon nor studiously Latin, but the 
words he talked with every day, and which both 
from his pen and his lips found their way with 
equal readiness to the understandings of poor and 
rich, of prince and peasant. Few men have hit 
more happily the medium betwixt the diffusion 
that leads to weakness and the concision that 
leads to aridity. He has never too many words 
for forcible expression, and never too few for ade- 
quate expression. And without any obtrusive 
study of harmony, he arranges them with such a 
delicate perception of their relations as soujids, 
that his sentences flow with a melody that lingers 
soothingly in the mind long after it has ceased to 
reach the ear. 

Like his great master, Addison, and his great 
contemporary, Goldsmith, he possessed in an emi- 
nent degree that rare quality of delicate humor 
which Englishmen, forgetful of Gasparo Gozzi, 
have claimed as exclusively their own. Yet, 
while he believed that men might often be laughed 
out of their foibles, he believed also that vices 
called for sterner rebuke ; and often, as his feelings 
grew warm, he gave them utterance in satire, 



36G LECTURE XL 

which, but for an uiiJer-cuiTcnt of genial synipatliy 
which he could never wholly repress, would have 
blisti'rod and burnt like the satire of Swift. 

You will readily conceive that for a genius like 
his the controversy with England opened an am- 
ple field, calling out all the resources of wit, il- 
lustration, and argument. Living in London, as 
agent for four Colonies, two of them the impor- 
tant Colonies of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, 
he was enabled to follow^ the progress of opinion in 
England, and measure from the begiiniing the ex- 
tent of the blindness and passion which were has- 
tening the final rupture. He would gladly have 
stayed it, for he thought it premature, and hence 
liis voice was raised in warnings, grave and earnest 
in spirit, though often playful, sometimes ironical 
in form. The profoundest reasoning could not 
have set in a more striking light the absurdity and 
impolicy of the acts of Parhament for restraining 
American industry, than his " Edict by the King 
of Prussia" settino- forth his claims to the sov- 
ereignty over England in virtue of the German 
origin of Hengist and Horsa and their companions 
and followers.* Still more severe in its irony, 
and equally profound in its wisdom, is the piece to 
which he gave the title, a satire in itself, of '^ Rules 
for reducing a great Empire to a small one ; pre- 
sented to a late Minister when he entered upon liis 
Administration." Observe how directly he comes 

* Sparks's Frauklin, Vol. IV. p. 399. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 367 

to his subject, and with what a masterly touch he 
brings out the great vinderlying truth : — 

" An ancient sage vahied himself upon this : that 
though he could not fiddle, he knew how to make 
a great city of a little one. The science that I, a 
modern simpleton, am about to communicate, is 
the very reverse. 

" I address myself to all ministers who have the 
management of extensive dominions, Avhich from 
their very greatness have become troublesome to 
govern, because the multiplicity of their affau's 
leaves no time for fiddling. 

"1. In the first place, gentlemen, you are to 
consider, that a great empire, like a great cake, is 
most easily diminished at the edges. Turn your 
attention, therefore, first to your remotest prov- 
inces ; that as you get rid of them, the next may 
follow in order. 

" 2. That the possibility of this separation may 
always exist, take special care the provinces are 
never incorporated with the mother country ; that 
they do not enjoy the same common rights ; the 
same privileges in commerce ; and that they are 
governed by severer laws, all of your enacting, 
without allowing them any share in the choice of 
the legislators. By carefully making and observ- 
ing such distinctions, you will (to keep to my sim- 
ile of the cake) act like a wise gingerbread-baker, 
who, to facilitate a division, cuts his dough lialf 
through in those places where, when baked, he 
would have it broken to pieces. 



368 LECTURE XL 

" 3. Those remote provinces have perhaps been 
acquired, purchased, or conquered, at the sole ex- 
pense of the settlers or their ancestors ; without the 
aid of the mother country. If this should happen 
to increase her strength, by their growing num- 
bers, ready to join in her wars, her commerce, by 
their growing demand for her manufactures, or her 
naval power, by greater employment for her ships 
and seamen, they may probably suppose some mex'it 
in this, and that it entitles them to some favor ; you 
are therefore to forget it all, or resent it, as if they 
had done you injury. If they happen to be zealous 
Whigs, friends of liberty, nui'tured in revolution 
principles, remember all that to their prejudice, 
and contrive to punish it ; for such principles, after 
a revolution is thoroughly estabhshed, are of no 
more use ; they are even odious and abominable. 

" 4. However peaceably your colonies have sub- 
mitted to your judgment, shown their affection to 
your interests, and patiently borne their griev- 
ances, you are to suppose them always inclined to 
revolt, and treat them accordingly. Quarter troops 
among them, who by their insolence may provoke 
the rising of mobs, and by their bullets and bayo- 
nets suppress them. By this means, like the hus- 
band who uses his wife ill from suspicion, you may 
in time convert your suspicions into realities." * 

I give you only extracts ; you should read the 
whole piece for yourselves ; and then turn to Swift 

* Sparks's Franklin, Vol. IV. p. 388. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 369 

and see if he has anywhere a keener page than 
this. And yet do you not feel, as you read, that 
it was written not in bitterness but in sadness of 
heart ? — that the benevolent old man was shud- 
dering, as he wrote, at the miseries he foresaw, was 
lingering with deep yearnings over the recollection 
of the blessings he had enjoyed ? * 

Still more striking is the piece written on his 
death-bed, just twenty-four days before he died, 
and which as we read it now in the midst of a war 
for the extension of slavery and reopening of the 
slave-trade, makes us blush to think that we should 

* As this page is passing through the press I find an important 
tribute to Franklin as an interpreter of nature, in Dr. Youmans's 
valuable introduction to the American edition of the recent Eng- 
lish work upon the " Correlation and Conservation of Forces " : — 
" It was this country, widely reproached for being over-practical, 
which produced just that kind of working ability that was suited 
to transfer this profound question from the barren to the fruitful 
field of inquiry. It is a matter of just national pride that the two 
men who first demonstrated the capital propositions of pure sci- 
ence, that lightning is but a case of common electricity, and that 
heat is but a mode of motion, who first converted these proposi- 
tions from conjectures of fancy to facts of science, were not only 
Americans by birth and education, but men eminently repre- 
sentative of the peculiarities of American character : Benjamin 
Franklin, and Benjamin Thompson, afterwards known as Count 
Rumford." 

Of the many literary portraits that have been drawn of Frank- 
lin I cannot deny myself the pleasure of referring to that by my 
friend Henry T. Tuckerman in his " Biographical Essays, or 
Studies of Character," a work remarkable for delicate obser* 
vation, accurate thought, and good writing. 

16* X 



37U LECTURE XL 

still, in 1863, be so little in advance of the ground 
he stood upon in 1790. I have not time to read it 
here, but I recommend it to the thoughtful exam- 
ination of all those who permit themselves to en- 
tertain doubts as to the interpretation Avhich one 
of the Avisest and most influential members of the 
Convention of 1788 put upon the first clause of 
the 9th Section, Article I., and the third clause of 
the 2d Section, Article IV., of the Constitution. 

Next to Franklin's no name was more familiar 
to Americans from 1768 to 1775 than the name 
of John Dickinson, the author of the " Farmer's 
Letters." This eminent man was born in jNIary- 
land on the 13th of November, 1732, and while he 
was yet a child his parents moved to Delaware, or 
as it was then called, the three lower counties on 
the Delawai'e. It was there that he received the 
rudiments of his education, and laid the foundations 
of that good taste and love of general literature 
which became one of the chief sources of his celeb- 
rity. When old enough to choose a profession he 
fixed upon the laAv, the most attractive of all in a 
free state, as opening the surest path to distinction 
and influence, and after makino- a successful beoin- 
ning in Philadelphia went to London and continued 
his studies three years in the Temple. The wis- 
dom of this course Avas soon manifest, for, returning 
to Philadelphia with that favorable opinion which 
the reputation of having studied in London never 
failed to awaken a mono; our Eno;land-loving ances- 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 371 

tors, he quickly made himself a position at the bar, 
and obtained a good practice. Nature, too, had 
done her part, and given him a countenance that 
attracted attention and won sympatliy, and an air 
and fio-ure well suited to the graceful and digniiied 
character of his eloquence. His reputation as an 
orator soon brought him into the Assembly, where 
it was readily seen that his talent for sober business 
was in no Avise inferior to his talent for debate. 
The dispute with England was daily growing 
warmer in tone, and more comprehensive in its 
bearings. But for the public men of Philadelphia 
there was also the additional dispute with the 
Proprietary, which has left such deep traces in 
the writings of Franklin. Dickinson entered 
heartily into them, using both voice and pen in 
support of his opinions, and with a facility and 
vigor that soon placed him in the front rank. His 
first publication was a speech upon the projected 
change from proprietary to royal governments, 
which he opposed as injudicious at a time when 
their privileges were so evidently threatened by 
the policy of the ministry. This was followed in 
1765 by a pamphlet, — " The late Regulations re- 
specting the British Colonies on the Continent of 
North America considered"; and to this pamphlet 
he was probably indebted for his appointment as 
delegate to the Congress that was to meet that 
year in NeM York. You remember the resolutions 
of that Congress, how bold and how firm they are, 



372 LECTURE XL 

and what an impulse and direction they gave to the 
spirit of resistance. It is no shght proof of Dickin- 
son's position that with such a man as James Otis 
in the Assembly he should have been chosen to 
draft its resolves. Returning home with the addi- 
tional lustre of tliis triumph, he resumed his labors 
at the bar, keeping, however, in view the great 
constitutional question in which all other questions 
were involved. Never, indeed, had such a field, 
so broad, so rich, demanding such depth of investi- 
gation, and such soundness of judgment, been 
opened to American statesmen. The Stamp Act, 
which had been so resolutely opposed on the conti- 
nent, had been submitted to, though not without 
remonstrance, by the little island of Barbadoes. 
But in instructing their agent in London to " lay 
[thcii'] complaints before his Majesty and the 
Parliament," the Committee of Correspondence 
had spoken of the resistance of their " fellow-sub- 
jects on the northern continent " as " rebellious 
opposition to authority," and of the spirit they wei'e 
impelled by, as "popular fury." Dickinson met the 
charge in a pamphlet entitled, " An Address to the 
Committee of Correspondence in Barbadoes, occa- 
sioned by a late Letter from them to then* Agent 
in London ; by a North American " ; — prefixing as 
a motto a passage from Shakespeare, which, like so 
many passages of that great poet, seemed to tell 
the whole story in a verse and a half: — 

" This word, Kcbellion, hath froze them up 
Like fish in a pond." 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION, 373 

"Had the charge of rebellion," begins the Preface, 
" been made by a private person, against the Colo- 
nies on this continent, for their opposition to the 
Stamp Act, I should not have thought it worth 
answering. But when it was made by men vested 
with a public character, by a committee of corre- 
spondence, representing two branches of legislatu.re 
in a considerable government, and the chai'ge was 
not only approved, as it is said, by those branches, 
but was actually published to the world in news- 
papers, it seemed to me to deserve notice. I waited 
some time, in hopes of seeing the cause espoused 
by an abler advocate ; but being disappointed, I 
resolved, favente Deo, to snatch a little time from 
the hurry of business, and to place, if I could, the 
letter of those gentlemen to their agent in a proper 
light." 

I have not time for extracts, but I will read you 
the opening paragraph, it is so true a picture of the 
author himself. 

" Gentlemen, — I am a North American, and 
my intention is, in addressing you at present, to 
answer so much of a late letter from you to youi 
agent in London, as casts unmerited censure or 
my countrymen. After this declaration, as yoi» 
entertain such unfavorable sentiments of the ' pop- 
ular fury ' on this continent, I presume you expect 
to be treated with all the excess of passion natural 
to a rude people. You ai'e mistaken. I am of 
their opinion who think it almost as infamous to 



374 LECTURE XL 

disgrace a good cause by illiberal language, as to 
betray it by unmanly timidity. Complaints may 
be made with dignity; insults retorted with de- 
cency, and violated rights vindicated without 
violence of words." 

Full as this pamphlet is of the life and spirit 
of political controversy, there is, at the same time, 
a fine literary tone about it, which shows that the 
excitement of public life had not estranged him 
fi'om his early masters and fi'iends. Still more 
apparent was this chastening influence of literary 
culture upon his next work, " The Farmer's Let- 
ters," published in 1767. 

This work forms an epoch in the literary history 
of the Revolution. In no other publication had 
the question of taxation been discussed upon such 
broad orounds and with such richness and vari- 
ety of illustration. The assumed character of a 
" Pennsylvania Farmer " permitted directness and 
simplicity of style, and the form of letters allowed 
of repetitions and returns to the same point that 
would have been unbecoming in a formal discourse. 
Unencumbered by the technicahties of professional 
reasoning, it Avas none the less faithful to the spirit 
of professional discipline. A man of letters might 
perhaps have claimed the author as one of his own 
fraternity, but no lawyer could have read it with- 
out recognizing the habits and influence of legal 
thought. Yet, to the people it came as the un- 
stucHed expression of the sentiments of a man not 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 375 

too far removed fi'om them to understand their 
feelmgs, and yet so much better informed than 
themselves that they might, witliout hazard, accept 
him as a gxiide. I shall not attempt to analyze 
these twelve Letters, for a mere analysis Avould 
give you a very imperfect idea of their power- 
But I will read you a single passage, in the hope 
that some among you who feel curious about the 
means which our ancestors employed in working 
out their part of our great problem, may be in- 
duced to read the whole for yourselves. 

" My dear Countrymen : — 

" I am a farmer, settled, after a variety of for- 
tunes, near the banks of the river Delaware, in the 
Province of Pennsylvania. I received a Hberal 
education and have been engaged in the busy 
scenes of life : but am now convinced, that a man 
may be as happy without bustle, as with it. My 
farm is small ; my servants are few, and good ; I 
have a little money at interest; I wish for no 
more ; my employment in my own affairs is easy ; 
and with a contented, grateful mind, undisturbed 
by worldly hopes or fears relating to mysef, I am 
completing the number of days allotted to me by 
Divine goodness. 

" Being generally master of my time, I spend a 
good deal of it in a Kbrary, which I think the most 
valuable part of my small estate ; and being ac- 
quainted with two or three gentlemen of abilities 



376 LECTURE XL 

and learning, who honor me with their fi*iendship, 
I have acquired, I beHeve, a greater knowledge in 
history, and the laws and constitution of my coun- 
try, than is generally attained by men of my class, 
many of them not being so fortunate as I have 
been in the opportunities of getting information. 

" From my infancy I was taught by my honored 
parents to love humanity and liberty. Inquiry and 
experience have since confirmed my reverence for 
the lessons then given me, by convincing me more 
fully of their tinith and excellence. Benevolence 
towards mankind excites wishes for their welfare, 
and such wishes endear the means of fulfillino; 
them. These can be found in Liberty only, and 
therefore her sacred cause ought to be espoused by 
every man on every occasion, to the utmost of his 
power. As a charitable, but poor person does not 
withhold his mite, because he cannot reheve all 
the distresses of the miserable, so should not any 
honest man suppress his sentiments concerning 
freedom, however small their influence is likely to 
be. Perhaps he ' may touch some wheel ' that will 
have an effect greater than he could reasonably 
expect. 

" These being my sentiments, I am encouraged 
to offer you, my countrymen, my thoughts on 
some late transactions, that appear to me to be of 
the utmost importance to you. Conscious of my 
own defects, I have waited some time in expecta- 
tion of seeing the subject treated by persons much 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 377 

better qualified for the task ; but being therein 
disappointed, and apprehensive that longer delays 
will be injurious, 1 venture at length to request 
the attention of the public, praying that these lines 
may be read with the same zeal for the happiness 
o^ British America with which they were written." 

When this work reached London, Franklin re- 
published it, with a preface so characteristic that I 
am sorry I have not time to read it to you.* In 
Paris it was soon translated, and coming at a time 
when, as we have already seen, ministers were 
beginning to turn their attention towards the Col- 
onies, must have gone a great way towards con- 
vincing them that there were men among the 
Americans fully able to appreciate their position 
and defend their rights. 

At home it was received not only with applause 
but with gratitude. "At a meeting; of the free- 
holders and other inhabitants of this town (Bos- 
ton), met at Faneuil Hall on Monday, the 24th 
inst.," 1768, a committee, on which we find the 
names of John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Jo- 
seph Warren, reported the draft of " a letter of 
thanks" "to the ingenious author of certain patri- 
otic letters, subscribed A Farmer," " saluting (him) 
as the friend of Americans and the common bene- 
factor of mankind." " It is to you, worthy sir," 
they say, " that America is obliged for a most sea- 
sonable, sensible, loyal, and vigorous vindication of 

* See Sparks's Fraiiklin, Vol. IV. p. 256. 



378 LECTURE XL 

her invaded rights and hberties." Everywhere it 
was welcomed as the voice of a wise man. The 
strong felt that they had gained a strong ally ; the 
weak, that they had found a strong arm to lean 
upon. It met the doubts of the wavering, exposed 
the sophistry of the treacherous, and, above all, 
enabled the great body of the people to grasp, as a 
conviction founded upon reason and supported by 
law, the principles which they had adopted from 
an instinctive sense of right. From that day John 
Dickinson became a leader of the people. " Curse 
him ! " said one of the faint-hearted, in the perilous 
December of 1776, " it was those ' Farmer's Let- 
ters ' of his that made all this trouble." 

You would naturally expect to find him in the 
Congress of 1774 ; and among the best state 
papers of that Congress are the Petition to the 
King, the Declaration to the Armies, and the Ad- 
dress to the Inhabitants of Quebec, from his pen. 
His pen, too, was employed in preparing the last 
petition to the King, which, as I have already 
stated, was carried through Congress chiefly by 
his influence. 

But, with all his clear-sightedness, Dickinson 
failed to see that the time for the Declaration of 
Independence was come. Of the right to break 
off our political connection with Great Britain he 
had no doubt, but he dreaded the consequences of a 
premature severing of ties which still had so strong 
a hold upon the hearts of the people. Fatal error! 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 379 

and for whicli he atoned by losing for a while the 
confidence of his fellow-citizens. When the new 
elections came, his name was dropped. It is not 
true, however, as Lord Mahon has asserted, upon 
the authority of Mr. Jefferson, that he refused to 
sign the Declaration. Mr. Jefferson's memory 
failed him singularly in his history of that docu- 
ment, important as the part he bore in it was. 
And when he referred to the journals of Congress 
for confirmation, he referred unfortunately, not to 
the manuscript journals, but to the printed edition, 
in which the Congressional editors had put the 
signing, which did not take place till August, under 
the head of the resolution of the 4th of July, — a 
separate and independent act. By that resolution 
John Hancock set his name to the Declaration 
of Independence as President of Congress, and 
Charles Thompson as Secretary ; and this was the 
shape in which it first went out to the world. In 
August it was engrossed on parchment, and then 
it was that all the members were called upon to 
sign it. But in the interval some new elections 
had taken place ; and thus among the names you 
will find some that were not on the rolls of Con- 
gress when the act was passed, and look in vain 
for the names of others who took an active part in 
the long contest which preceded its passage and 
voted upon the act itself* In August, Dickinson 

* For a full discussion of this important question I would 
refer the reader to " The Declaration of Independence ; or, Notes 



380 LECTURE XL 

was no longer in Congi'ess, but — and all honor to 
his memory for the manly deed — he, the rich 
man, the man of delicate and refined habits, still 
hardly second among the leaders of our councils, 
was with the army in New Jersey, at the head of 
a regiment of militia. 

In 1779 he was again returned to Congress, and 
again assisted with his pen in the preparation of 
those state papers which still hold their place 
among the noblest monuments of American intel- 
lect. The magnanimity with which he had atoned 
for his brief error of 1776 was rewarded by a full 
return of public confidence. He was successively 
President of Delaware and of Pennsylvania ; he 
again found himself by the side of Washington 
and Franklin in the convention which gave us our 
noble Constitution ; and he used his pen to explain 
and defend it, under the signature of Fabius, as he 
had used it twenty years before to explain and 
defend the rights of the Colonies under the sig- 
nature of a Pennsylvania Farmer. Again, too, in 
1797, he re-entered the field of political discussion 
to examine the delicate question of our relations 
with France. Eleven more years were granted 
him to behold the rapid growth and marvellous 

on Lord Mahon's History of the American Declaration of Inde- 
pendence," by Peter Force, — darum et venerabile nomen, — which 
I cannot write without recording my protest against the unjusti- 
fiable suspension of the "American Archives," — the greatest 
monument ever erected by a nation to its own history. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLTUION. 381 

prosperity of the State by whose cradle he had 
watched so faithfully, and then in his quiet home 
at Wilmington, surrounded by friends who loved 
and honored him, he went calmly to his rest on 
the 14th of February, 1808. 

No two men could have been more unlike than 
John Dickinson and John Adams ; no two men 
more sure to come into collision almost as soon as 
they came into contact. But, as a writer, Adams's 
place is next to Dickinson for the influence which 
he exercised over large masses. Like Dickinson's, 
also, his writings are chiefly argumentative, start- 
ing from a solid groundwork of constitutional law, 
and fortified by collateral aids from the law of 
nature and of nations. But there is a vehemence 
in Adams which contrasts strongly with the gentle 
flow of Dickinson's periods, and a self-reliance bor- 
dering at times on arrogance. His strength is 
often the strength of an ardent nature rather than 
tJie vigor of a powerful intellect. He often grap- 
ples boldly Avith a subject without pausing to 
examine his means, and leaves upon the mind the 
impression of a thing eaniestly begun and eagerly 
pursued, but not revolved with that patient and 
laborious investigation which is essential to the 
full mastery of a complex question. Upon impor- 
tant subjects, and when men's minds were already 
excited by an existing or an impending danger, he 
woidd be read eagerly ; but in calmer times, his 
negligence, unredeemed by gi'ace ; his roughness, 



382 LECTURE XI. 

not always atoned for by vigor ; and his hasty 
aggregation of materials which require a system- 
atic and artistic arrangement to give them life and 
interest, will always prevent him from taking the 
place wliich, with a little more respect for others 
and a little less confidence in himself, he might 
easily have taken among the masters of political 
wisdom. 

It is impossible to think of Adams, either as a 
writer or as a statesman, without soon thinking 
of Jefferson. Like his great opponent, Jefferson's 
own character is deeply impressed upon his writ- 
ings. You recognize in the easier, Hvelier, more 
equable flow of his periods, a richer, more pleasure- 
seeking, and genial nature. You perceive in the 
more varied and harmonious structure of his sen- 
tences the traces of a musical sense carefully and 
lovingly cultivated as a source of keen enjoyment. 
There is a quickness in his perceptions, which is 
faithfully reflected in the rapid movement of his 
general style ; and at times, as in the Declaration 
of Independence, a grave and solemn earnestness, 
rising in parts into that sober eloquence which is 
the natural language of conviction. Jefferson was 
a scholar of a wide range, loving language, science, 
natural history, political speculation. But, as you 
read him, you receive the impression of versatility 
rather than of depth, of vivacity rather than of 
power, of activity rather than of serious thought. 
You are entertained, interested ; you get now and 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 383 

then new views of familiar things, new suggestions 
which awaken curiosity, and please by the im- 
pression of novelty; but the imagination and the 
heart remain cold, reason is seldom stimulated to 
great efforts, and you leave him rather with an 
increased aversion to error than a warmer love and 
deeper reverence for truth. But Jefferson's con- 
tributions to the literature of the Revolution were 
few. He was neither a controversiaHst nor an 
orator, and his brief Congressional career afforded 
him few opportunities for distinguishing himself 
by his pen. His one great work was the Declara- 
tion of Independence, now, more evidently than 
ever before, a work for all ages. 

Of John Jay, also, it may truly be said that the 
style is the man. Dignity, sobriety, the distinct- 
ness of a sound reason and the warmth of a strong 
conviction, are the characteristics of his state pa- 
pers as they were the characteristics of his mind. 
Sometimes, too, that warmth rises to a solemn elo- 
quence. I have time but for one example, and I 
take it from the circular letter of 1779 which I 
have already quoted in my Lecture upon the Fi- 
nances of the Revolution. The object of the let- 
ter, you will remember, was to justify the conduct 
of Congress with regard to emissions of paper, and 
enforce the necessity of fulfilling the engagements 
it had made in the name of the people. 

" Humanity as well as justice make this demand 
upon you. The complaints of mined widows and 



384 LECTURE XL 

tlie cries of fatherless cliildren whose wliole sup- 
port has been placed in your hands and melted 
away, have doubtless reached you ; take care that 
they ascend no higher.''^ 

I will not go to Pagan eloquence for a parallel 
to this, for the force of it depends upon the force 
of our Christian convictions, — upon our enjoined 
recognition of God as the God of the fatherless 
children and the widow. But has Bossuet a 
nobler passage ? Or compare it rather with the 
opening sentence of Massillon's funeral oration on 
the " Great Louis," — " Dieu seul est grand, mes 
freres, — God alone is great, my brethren," — 
and weighing well all the circumstances, tell me 
which gains most by the comparison ? 

We are so accustomed to think of Alexander 
Hamilton as the confidential aid of Washington 
during the war and the principal author of the 
the Federalist after it, that we are apt to for- 
get that he began his brilliant career by two re- 
markable pamphlets, one written in 1774 at the 
age of sixteen, and the other in 1775 ; and that in 
1781 he wrote the Continentalist, The object 
of the pamphlet was to defend the action of the 
Continental Congress against the attacks of " A 
West Chester Farmer"; and he does it with a 
combination of argument, learning, and wit never 
equalled by a boy, and seldom surpassed by a 
man. The object of the Continentalist was to de- 
monstrate the insufficiency of the ]iowers of the 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 385 

Confederation, and prepare the public mind for 
enlarging them. Although not extended beyond 
six numbers, it is a foreshadowing, if not a direct 
annunciation, of the Constitution, and of its best 
exponent, " The Federalist." All of these works 
display the marvellous precocity of Hamilton's 
mind and the easy vigor of his pen. It seems 
strange to find a boy of seventeen writing with 
such evident familiarity about Grotius and Puffen- 
dorff, and urging home upon his antagonist the 
unconscious accordance of his fundamental axioms 
with the godless theory of Hobbes. And it seems 
equally strange to find, that this maturity of thought 
never checks the vivacity of his style, and that the 
style never jfalls below the dignity of the subject. 

But the most important channel of Hamilton's 
influence as a writer from 1777 to 1781 was 
through Washington's official correspondence ; in 
which it is as impossible to deny that he bore an 
important part as to deny that the similarity of 
tone and thought which pervade it from the begin- 
ning to the end of Washington's life, prove the 
importance of the part which he also took in the 
preparation of the documents that bear his sig- 
nature. 

I have already spoken of the effect produced by 
the writings of Otis and Quincy. I do not care 
to speak of Thomas Paine, although his " Common 
Sense " came out at a propitious moment, and con- 
tributed materially to prepare the general mind for 
17 " Y 



386 LECTURE XL 

the Declaration of Independence. But when he 
wrote it he had not been lone; enouoh in America 
to receive any definite impression from the Amer- 
ican mind, and I cheerfully rehnquish to his native 
island all the honor that belongs to the birthplace 
of such a son. Of Hopkinson, whose prose displays 
much of the playful vivacity which distinguishes 
his verse, of Samuel Adams, who wrote many of 
tlie best state papers of Massachusetts, of Living- 
ston, and Richard Henry Lee, who wrote some of 
the most important state papers of Congress, and 
of many others who contributed by letters and 
pamphlets and state papers of local legislatures to 
the formation and guidance of public opinion, it is 
impossible to speak at large in a single lecture. 
Histoiy has not yet done full justice to their labors, 
nor can I see without a feeling of humiliation and 
painful regret, that a pi*ess which seizes so eagerly 
upon the journal of Semmes and the life of Stone- 
wall Jackson, which pours out so lavishly the 
ephemeral productions of the American mind, and 
reproduces so cheerfully productions of the English 
mind that do us no service either practically as 
men and citizens or speculatively as students and 
lovers of the good, the beautiful, and the true, 
should permit these precious legacies of our fatliers 
to lie buried and forgotten in pamphlets almost 
inaccessible from their rarity and newspapers al- 
most illegible from moth-holes and flided ink. 
How many of the bitterest tears of the present 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 387 

might we have been spared by a timely study 
of the past! 

For the newspaper press, which is too broad a 
field for discussion within my narrow limits, I must 
refer you to Frank Moore's admirable selections 
under the title of " Diaiy of the Revolution." 

Of the debates in Congress we have but few and 
imperfect specimens ; but all tradition agrees in at- 
tributing to Patrick Henry a fiery vehemence that 
seemed at times like inspiration ; elaborate and 
pohshed concision to Richard Henry Lee, argu- 
mentative vigor to John Adams, persuasive elo- 
quence to John Dickinson, and in various degrees 
many of the higher characteristics of eloquence to 
Jay, and Rutledge, and Mifflin, and Gouverneur 
Morris. 

If there was less of eloquence in the pulpit, there 
was fervor, earnestness, and fearless patriotism. 
Men were not afi^aid of giving utterance on Sun- 
day to the hopes that had mingled with their week- 
day prayers. They were not afi^aid to rebuke sin 
in the garb of state craft and policy, even at the 
risk of bringing politics into the pulpit. They did 
not fear to say that the qualities that make bad citi- 
zens make bad Christians also ; that the traitor to 
his country is a traitor to his God. This was their 
faith. They proclaimed it on Sunday, they lived 
it in their daily lives. Bible in hand they followed 
their flocks to the camp, toiled with them through 
weary marches, preached to them with drum-heads 



388 LECTURE XL 

for a pulpit, prayed with them on the battle-field, 
held the cooling draught to the hps of the wound- 
ed, and soothed, amid the roar of the conflict, the 
fainting spirits of the dying. 

We are proud, and justly proud, of the Congress 
and the army, the statesmen and the generals of 
our Revolution, and close by their sides stand the 
patriot preachers. 



LECTURE XII. 

LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 

PAET IL — POETRY. 

WE saw in our last Lecture that the prose 
hterature of the Revohition was pecuharly 
a hterature of reasoning and discussion. If I were 
to attempt to characterize the poetical hterature of 
the Revolution I should call it a literature of sylla- 
bles and rhymes. As a general rule, every noun has 
its adjective, every object its epithet, and through 
the mist of accumulated attributes you ai'e often at 
a loss for the real character of the subject to which 
they are applied. The lines are generally correct, 
the number of syllables is complete, the csesura 
falls in the right place, there is often thought, 
sometimes feeling, not unfrequently harmony and 
movement, but there is neither fancy nor imagi- 
nation, and therefore no ti'ue poetry. Yet this 
period produced two epics, and elegies, odes, epis- 
tles, and occasional verses without number. Bar- 
low is called " the child of genius " ; Dwight, " the 
blessed " ; Trumbull, " the earliest boast of fame." 
And for a lone: while no one seems to have doubted 



390 LECTURE XIL 

the claims of American poetry, any more tlian he 
doubted the claims of American enterprise. 

Nor was English poetiy much better off in her 
native island. Goldsmith, it is true, had put 
enough of it into " The Traveller " and " The 
Deserted Village- " to redeem a whole generation 
of Pyes and Hayleys ; and Cowper was just pre- 
paring to lead back the public taste to the paths of 
pure feeling and natural expression, from which it 
had wandered so flir and so long.* But with more 
than half that was published and read as poetry in 
England, the verses of Dwight, and Barlow, and 
Humphreys, might have been freely compared 
without losing by the comparison. 

It would be great injustice to the memory of an 
eminent man, if I were to pass by the name of 
Timothy Dwight without alluding to his great ser- 
vices as a teacher, able to point out paths which 
he was unable to tread, and a scholar, able to 
enjoy beauties which he was unable to imitate. 
A native of Massachusetts, where he was born 
in 1752, he passed the chief of his life in Connect- 
icut, where he died as President of Yale College 
in 1817. Wondrous tilings are told of the pre- 
cocity of his mind, and the marvels of his mem- 
ory. He could dictate to three secretaries at a 
time, and preserve unbroken and distinct the flow 
of each separate train of thouglit. He tilled his 
farm with his own hands, keeping school, and 

* "The Task" was published in 1784. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 391 

preaching, writing prose and poetry, theology, 
and an epic, and all witliout permitting one task 
to interfere with another. His pupils looked up to 
him with somewhat of the veneration with which 
Boswell looked up to Johnson, and if tradition may 
be trusted he was not unwilling to be thought 
Johnson's equal in the conduct of an argument, 
or the power of dictating to a social circle. It was 
to him and his friend Trumbull that Yale College 
was indebted for an enlargement of its course of 
study, and the introduction of a purer literary 
taste, and through Yale, a large portion of the 
yomig men of the first period of our history as 
a united people. 

D wight's hopes of poetical fame were chiefly 
founded upon " The Conquest of Canaan," an epic, 
with Joshua for a hero, and all the defects and few 
of the beauties of the style used by Pope in his 
translation of the Iliad. It was the production 
of his youth, which, however, when we remem- 
ber that Tasso began the Jerusalem at twenty, 
will hardly serve as an excuse for its uniform dul- 
ness and resolute mediocrity. " Greenfield Hill," 
though defective in plan, is far more felicitous in 
execution, and parts of it may be read with pleas- 
ure even now. It is from this, although it was not 
written till after the close of the war, that I select 
a passage, both as showing Dwight's powers of 
versification with an acknowledged model before 
him, and as illustrating the view which, in connnon 



392 LECTURE XII. 

with the greater part of his contemporaries, he took 
of slaveiy. 

" But hark ! what voice so gayly fills the wind ? 
Of care oblivious, whose that laughing mind ? 
'T is yon poor black, who ceases now his song, 
And whistling, drives the cumbrous wain along 

Kindly fed, and clad, and treated, he 
Slides on, through life, with more than common glee. 
For here mild manners good to all impart. 
And stamp with infamy th' unfeeling heart ; 
Here Law from vengeful rage the slave defends, 
And here the Gospel peace on earth extends. 

" He toils, 't is true, but shares his master's toil ; 
With him he feeds the herd, and trims the soil ; 
Helps to sustain the house with clothes and food, 
And takes his portion of the common good. 
Lost liberty, liis sole, peculiar ill. 
And fixed submission to another's will. 
Ill, ah, how great ! without that cheering sim. 
The world is changed to one wide frigid zone : 
The mind, a chilled exotic, cannot grow, 
Nor leaf with vigor, nor with promise blow ; 
Pale, sickly, shrunk, it strives in vain to rise. 
Scarce lives while living, and untimely dies. 
See fresh to life the Afric infant spring. 
And plume its powers, and spread its little wing ! 
Fu-m is its frame, and vigorous is its mind. 
Too young to think, and yet to misery blind. 
But soon he sees Iiimself to slavery born ; 
Soon meets tlic voice of power, tJie eye of scorn ; 
Sighs for the blessings of his peers, in vain. 
Conditioned as a brute, though formed a man. 
Around he casts his fond, instinctive eyes. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 393 

And sees no good, to fill his wishes, rise ; 
(No motive warms with animating beam. 
Nor praise, nor property, nor kind esteem, 
Blessed independence on his native ground, 
Nor sweet equality with those around;) 
Himself and his, another's shrinks to find, 
Levelled below the lot of human kind. 
Thus, shut from honor's paths, he turns to shame, 
And filches the small good he cannot claim. 
To sour and stupid, sinks his active mind, 
Finds joys in drink, he cannot elsewhere find; 
Rule disobeys ; of half his labor cheats ; 
In some safe cot, the pilfered turkey eats ; 
Rides hard, by night, the steed, his art purloins ; 
Serene from conscience' bar himself essoins; 
Sees from himself his sole redress must flow, 
And m_akes revenge the balsam of his woe." * 

Of Joel Bai'low, who was born in 1755 and died 
in 1812, it behooves us to remember that while he 
pursued his studies at college during term time, he 
served in the ranks as a volunteer during vacation. 
Thus he fought at the White Plains, and was an 
actor in some of the scenes which he afterwards 
attempted to describe. Having completed his, col- 
lege course, he returned to the army awhile as 
chaplain, and from time to time, like his friends 
Trumbull and Dwight, composed camp songs for 
the soldiers. Nor should it be forgotten that his 
lonely death in an obscure Polish village was 
brought on by exposure in the service of his 
country. If not a great poet, he was a good, 

* Part II. p. 36 
17* 



394 LECTURE XII. 

loyal citizen, conscious of the high privileges which 
his citizenship gave him, and willing to die for 
them. Let us speak tenderly of the poetic short- 
comings of a worthy man. 

By his contemporaries he was regarded as a man 
of genius. Jefferson thought him the best prose 
writer of his time. How much Avas expected fi*om 
liim as a poet David Humphreys tells us in a letter 
to General Greene, announcing " The Vision of 
Columbus " as a work of the highest order, which 
some wealthy citizens of New Haven were about 
to give the young poet the means of completing 
at his ease.* 

It Avas not, however, till eight years after this 
letter Avas Avritten that the poem made its appear- 
ance in a modest duodecimo, with a fiill list of sub- 
scribers, among AA'hom Ave find the names of " His 
Most Christian Majesty for tAventy-fiA^e copies, and 
His Excellency George Washington, Esq., for 
twenty copies." General Greene's Avould doubtless 
ha-e been there also, but he had already been 
lying tAvo years in his unknoAvn gra\'e. The title 
tells as much of the plan of the poem as can well 
be told Avithout rehearsing the table of contents ; 
and its title, suggesting, as it immediately does, the 
idea of a history in rhyme, carries condemnation 
with it. I Avill give you a feAv specimens, trying 
to do the author full justice in my selection. The 

* David Humphreys to General Greene. New Haven, April 
10, 1780. Greene Papers, MS. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. SOo 

opening lines are not without a certain grave liar- 
mony which reminds you of greater poets. 

" Long had the sage, the first who dai'ed to brave 
The unknown dangers of the western wave, 
Who taught mankind where future empires lay 
In these fair confines of descending day, 
With cares o'erwhelmed, in life's distressing gloom, 
Wished from a thankless world a peaceful tomb : 
While kings and nations envious of his name 
Enjoyed his labors and usurped his fame, 
And gave the chief, from promised empire hurled. 
Chains for a crown, a prison for a world. 

" Now night and silence held their lonely reign, 
The half-orbed moon declining to the main ; 
Descending clouds o'er varying ether driven, 
Obscured the stars and shut the eye from heaven ; 
Cold mists through opening grates the cell invade, 
And death-like terrors haunt the midnight shade ; 
When from a visionary, short repose, 
That raised new cares and tempered keener woes, 
Columbus woke, and to the walls addressed 
The deep felt sorrows of his manly breast." 

I pass over the earher periods of our history. 
There is nothing in his treatment of them to re- 
ward the labor of an extract. But you will be 
curious to see how far the Muse smiles upon him 
when he undertakes to paint scenes which he had 
witnessed and men whom he had known. 

" Where dread Monmouth lifts a frowning height 
Parading armies cast a glaring light, 
Then strode the British Clinton o'er the field. 
And marshalled hosts for ready combat held. 



396 LECTURE XII. 

As the dim sun, beneath the skirts of even, 
Crimsons the clouds that sail the western heaven ; 
So, in red wavy rows, where spread the train 
Of men and standards, shone the fateful plain. 

" But now dread Washington arose in sight, 
And the long ranks rolled forward to the fight ; 
He points tlio charge, the mounted thunders roar. 
And plough tlie plain, and rock the distant shore. 
Above the folds of smoke that veiled the war, 
His guiding sword illumed the fields of air; 
The volleyed flames that burst along the plain, 
Break the deep clouds, and show the piles of slain ; 
Till flight begins ; the smoke is rolled away 
And the red standards open into day. 
Britons and Germans hurry from the field. 
Now wrapped in dust, and now to sight revealed ; 
Behind, great Washington his falchion drives, 
Thins the pale ranks, and copious vengeance gives. 
Hosts captive bow and move behind his arm 
And hosts before him wing the driven storm ; 
When the glad shore salutes their fainting sight, 
And thundering navies screen their rapid flight."* 

There are bettor verses than these in the Vision, 
but none more characteristic, except, perhaps, the 
characters of Trumbull, Dwight, and Humphi*eys, 
at the end of the seventh book. 

It is easy to see where the weakness of these 
verses lies. Barlow never writes with " his eye 
on the object," and therefore never tells us what 
is actually seen ; never writes with his thoughts 
fixed upon his own emotions, and therefore never 
tells what is actually felt. Instead of tliis lie giv.?s 
* Book VI. 111. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 397 

us words -wrought into sonorous verses, which fill 
the ear, but fail to reach the mind as the repre- 
sentatives of real perceptions or real feeling. His 
heroes and scenes float before you as vague and 
formless as the ghosts of Ossian ; and like Ossian, 
whom he seems to have studied more than Homer, 
he bewilders you by a succession of indistinct con- 
ceptions, which, having no definite shape ii^i his 
own mind, leave no clear image in yours. 

He has no creative imagination to invest objects 
and characters with a living interest, — no play of 
fancy to relieve the monotonous vmiformity of cata- 
logue and description ; and, moreover, the grandeur 
of the subject bewilders and oppresses him. You 
look for a poem, and you find a geography, a chron- 
icle, and a rhapsody of political speculation. The 
greatest of poets might have failed with such a 
subject. Barlow was not a great poet, and per- 
haps the severest censure that can be passed upon 
him is, that he knew so little of his own strength, 
and had formed so imperfect a conception of the 
true nature of poetry as to attempt to construct a 
poem out of such materials. He afterwards re- 
turned to the task again, and enlarged " The Vis- 
ion of Columbus " into " The Columbiad." But it 
gained nothing by the expansion. If you would 
see Barlow at his best, read " Hasty Pudding," 
for there he does sing the " sweets he knows and 
the charms he feels." 

David Humphreys, the friend whose glowing 



398 LECTURE XII. 

anticipations of Barlow's success I have alluded to, 
was also a poet in the sense which that ill-used 
word is so often made to bear. He wrote with 
ease verses that rhymed well and flowed smoothly, 
and, putting a fair measure of thought into them, 
was read and praised by his contemporaries. Few 
poets, too, have had a wider range of personal 
experience than he, and of that kind of experience 
which is most easily woven into poetiy. He was 
born in Connecticut in those Colonial days which 
afford such attractive scenes of rural life, — when 
towns and villages were little more than condensed 
farms, every man knowing all the inhabitants, and 
all uniting in harvestings, and huskings, and cider- 
makings, — when quil tings were the joyous gather- 
ings of matrons and maidens, and w^inter firesides 
Avere thrilled by stories of Indian wars, or charmed 
by descriptions of home.* His school and college 
days w^ere the days of discussion ripening into 
revolution, which gave a living interest to every 
lesson that he read in the history of the old repub- 
lics. The war found him in a quiet retreat on the 
banks of the Hudson, where Nature is loveliest, 
and where, not many years afterwards, she re- 
vealed so much to Washington Irving that 'she 
never revealed to him. From this life of seclusion 
he passed to the life of camps : was Putnam's aid 
in 1778, and lived on so friendly a footing with 
the old man that he learned to look upon him as a 

* A word which ia Coloaial parlance meant England. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 399 

father ; was Greene's aid for a short time ; was 
Washington's aid from 1780 to the end of the war, 
receiving a sword from Congress for gallant ser- 
vices at Yorktown, and won so largely of Wash- 
ington's esteem that that man of few professions 
wrote him, in 1784, " I shall hold in pleasing re- 
membrance the friendship and intimacy which 
have subsisted between us, and shall neglect no 
opportunity on my part to cultivate and improve 
them." * Next he went to Paris as Secretary for 
the Commission of Treaties, with Jefferson for his 
principal, and Kosciusko for shipmate ; returned to 
become a legislator, to write " The Anarchiad " at 
Hartford, with Trumbull, Barlow, and Hopkins ; 
to write a Life of Putnam at Mount Vernon, with 
Washington for a daily companion ; then crossed 
the Atlantic again, and was Minister at Lisbon ; 
and crossing it still another time, was Minister to 
Spain, and negotiated treaties with Tripoli and Al- 
giers. And devoting his last as his first years to 
the good of his country, and mingling private with 
public activity, he accepted in 1812 the command 
of the mihtia of Connecticut, superintending the 
while, on his own land, the breed of merino sheep 
which he had been, if not the first, one of the first 
to introduce into the LTnited States. Death, which 
had so often passed him by on the battle-field, came 
to him suddenly in 1818, at the age of sixty-five. 

* The whole letter is worth reading, as an illustration of 
Washington the man. Sparks's Washington, Vol. IX. p. 6. 



400 LECTURE XII. 

Yet he passed through all these scenes, and 
wrote long poems about some of them, without 
perceiving in what their poetry consisted, or leav- 
ing a single picture which postei'ity can go to for 
vigor of outline or fidelity of detail. Nature had 
denied him the power of looking into his own 
heart as the poet who would touch other hearts 
must look,* or of discerning in the forms of exter- 
nal life, which lie open to every eye, the secrets 
which no eye but the poet's can discern, and no 
mind but the poet's interpret. Like Barlow, he 
could not see objects as they really were, nor tell 
in direct and simple language what he had really 
seen. What lifelike portraits ought we not to 
have had of Washington, and Greene, and Wayne, 
and Knox, and Putnam, from one who had seen 
them and talked with them daily through the 
most important years of their lives and his own. 
Yet they come before us like the lay-figures of the 
artist, posed, draped, and lifeless. What scenes 
the summer march and winter encampment might 
have suggested to the true poet ! but in the verses 
of Humphreys all the distinctive charactei'istics 
are overlaid by epithets or lost in vague general- 
ities. It is a thing I can never think of without 
pain, that a man who loved his country so much 
and served her so well, who saw so much that we 

* " Look, then, into thine heart, and write ! 
Yes, into Life's deep stream ! " 

Longfellow, Prelude to Voices of the Night. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 401 

wish to know about, and possessed such a facihty 
of language and versification for telling it, should 
not have contented himself with telling us just 
what he saw, and how he felt as he saw it. 

Of the six long poems that he wrote, and all of 
which, like all of his prose, sprang directly from 
the scenes in which he was engaged, and bear wit- 
ness to his devotion to his country, one only belongs 
to our present subject, — the " Address to the Ar- 
mies of America." It was written in camp and 
while " the author was so far engaged in the duties 
of his profession as to have but little leisure for sub- 
jects of literature or amusement." "I was with 
you, my dear Colonel," writes his French transla- 
tor, the Marquis de Chastellux, " when, after a 
glox'ious campaign, you composed in silence, those 
elegant verses, wherein you have displayed the 
whole extent of your genius, in only wishing to 
express your patriotic sentiments." " The reader," 
says the Journal de Paris, " will moreover remark 
with pleasure the contrast which the author has 
had the art to introduce, in a skilful manner, in 
the two very distinct parts of his poem. In the 
first he paints the dangers which America expe- 
rienced, and the calamities of war which desolated 
her for so long a period. In the last he collects 
only delightful ideas and pictures of happiness ; he 
unfolds to America the auspicious effects of that 
liberty she had obtained, and the felicity she is 
about to enjoy." 



402 LECTURE XII. 

" The performance," says an English journal, the 
Critical Review, *■' may with some trifling excep- 
tions, be justly styled a good poem, but not a very 
pleasing one to good Englishmen." And while 
good Englishmen satisfied their curiosity by public 
readings of it, they pacified their wounded pride by 
claiming the author as a countryman. 

We must not forget, however, that one of the 
causes of this success was curiosity. Before the 
war the power of the American soil and climate to 
produce great men had been seriously called in 
question. It had even been gravely asserted that 
under their influence both men and animals soon 
fell below the European standai'd. The Revolu- 
tion had shown that in military skill and statesman- 
ship this assumption of an arrogant philosophy 
was false. But was it eqvially false in literature ? 
Humphi-eys published his " Addi*ess," and hun 
dreds of curious eyes turned eagerly to it to see. 

The opening lines are grave and dignified : — 

"Ye martial bands ! Columbia's fairest pride ! 
To toils inured, in dangers often tried, — 
Ye gallant youtlis! whose breasts for glory burn, 
Each selfish aim and meaner passion spurn ; 
Ye who, unmoved, in the dread Iiour have stood, 
And smiled, undaunted, in the field of blood, — 
Who greatly dared, at Freedom's rapt'rous call. 
With her to triumph, or with her to fall, — 
Now brighter days in prospect swift ascend ; 
Ye sous of lame, the hallowed theme attend ; 
The past review, the future scene explore, 
And Heaven's high King with grateful hearts adore 1 " 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 403 

The " parent state, a parent now no more," 
begins hostilities, affording the poet an occasion for 
a simile in sonorous and swelling verses, which, at 
a time when men who had seen the moon and 
stars still admu'ed Pope's rendering of the cele- 
brated simile in the eighth Ihad, and mistook it 
for Homer, may perhaps have been admired as 
nature by men who had seen a thunder-storm : — 

"As when dark clouds from Andes' towering head, 
Roll down the skies and round th' horizon spread, 
With thunders fraught, the blackening tempest sails, 
And bursts tremendous o'er Peruvian vales, — 
So broke the storm on Concord's fatal plain." 

Remember now what the real character of the 
uprising after the battle of Lexington was ; remem- 
ber the gathering of minute-men ; remember how 
farmers and mechanics dropped their tools, seized 
their guns, and went forth singly or in small bands, 
or in regular companies, crowding the roads to 
Cambridge. See Putnam leaving his plough in 
the furrow, when the tidings reached him, by day, 
and Greene hurrying off in the dark that he might 
be ready to join the Kentish Guards in their march 
before dawn ; think of the partings on the thresh- 
old, — of the mothers and sisters and wives that 
remained at home, — and regret with me that one 
who was a witness and a part of such scenes should 
have only told us that 

" Then the shrill trumpet echoed from afar. 
And sudden blazed the wasting flame of war ; 



404 LECTURE XII. 

From state to state, swift flew the dire alarms, 

And ardent youths impetuous rushed to arms ; 

'To arms' the matrons and the virgins sung, 

To arms, their sires, their husbands, brotliers, sprung. 

No dull delay, — where'er the sound was heard. 

Where the red standard in the air appeared, 

Where through vast realms the cannon swelled its roar, 

Between th' Acadian and Floridian shore, — 

Now joined the crowd from their far-distant farms, 

In rustic guise, and unadorned in arms ; 

Not like their foes in tinsel trappings gay. 

And burnished arms that glittered on the day." 

Bunker Hill follows : — 

" Long raged the contest on th' embattled field ; 
Nor those would fly, nor these would tamely yield — 
Till Warren fell, in all the boast of arms, 
The pride of genius and unrivalled charms. 
His country's hope ! — full soon the gloom was spread i 
Oppressed with numbers and their leader dead, 
Slow from the field the sullen troops retired, 
Behind, the hostile flames to heaven aspired." 

Washington appears on the scene : — 

" Now darkness gathered round : 
The thunder rumbled, and the tempest frowned; 
When lo ! to guide us through the storm of war. 
Beamed the bright splendor of Virginia's star. 
First of her heroes, fav'rite of the skies. 
To what dread toils thy country bade thee rise ! 
' O, raised by Heaven to save th' invaded state ! ' 
(So spake the sage long since thy future fate,) 
'T was thine to change the sweetest scenes of life 
For public cares, — to guide th' embattled strife; 
Unnumbered ills of every kind to dare. 
The winter's blast, the summer's sultry air, 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 405 

The lurking dagger, and the turbid storms 
Of wasting war with death in all its forms. 
Nor aught could daunt. Unspeakably serene, 
Thy conscious soul smiled o'er the dreadful scene." 

I pass over the tributes to Brown, Scammel, 
and Laurens, which, according to the Journal de 
Paris, " will ever be read with sympathetic sor- 
row." One more passage must suffice for the 
dark side of the picture, and in it you will find 
two lines which come nearer to truth of coloring 
than any we have yet read : — 

" What ! when you fled before superior force, 
Each succor lost, and perished each resource ! 
When nature, fainting from the want of food. 
On the white snow your steps were marked in blood ! 
When through your tattered garbs you met the wind! 
Despair before, and ruin frowned behind ! " 

Peace approaches : — 

" Anon the horrid sounds of war shall cease, 
And all the Western world be hushed in peace : 
The martial clarion shall be heard no more. 
Nor the loud cannon's desolating roar : 
No more our heroes pour the purple flood. 
No corse be seen with garments rolled in blood ; 
No shivering wretch shall roam without a shed : 
No pining orphans raise their .cry for bread ; 
No tender mother shriek at dreams of woe, 
Start from her sleep, and see the midnight foe ; 
The lovely virgin, and the hoary sire. 
No more behold the village flame aspire, 
While the base spoiler, from a father's arms 
Plucks the fair flower, and riots on its charms." 



406 LECTURE XII. 

Do you not recognize in these lines a mingled 
imitation of Pope and Goldsmith? It is still more 
evident in the following passage, which is, perhaps, 
a nearer approach to real poetry than any he ever 
wrote. 

" Then, ray friends ! the task of glory done, 
Th' immortal prize by your bold efforts won ; 
Your country's saviours by her voice confessed, 
While unborn ages rise and call you blest, — 
Then let us go where happier climes invite, 
To midland seas, and regions of delight ; 
With all that 's ours, together let us rise, 
Seek brighter plains, and more indulgent skies ; 
Where fair Ohio rolls his amber tide, 
And Nature blossoms in her virgin pride; 
Where all that beauty's hand can form to please 
Shall crown the toils of war with rural ease. 
The shady coverts, and the sunny hills. 
The gentle lapse of ever-murm'ring rills, 
The soft repose amid the noontide bowers. 
The evening walk among the blushing flowers. 
The fragrant groves that yield a sweet perfume. 
And vernal glories in perpetual bloom, 
Await you there ; and heaven shall bless the toil, 
Your own the produce, as your own the soil." 

" The Happiness of America " does not, strictly 
speaking, come within the limits of my subject, for 
it was not written till after the war. I allude to 
it howcA^er, because, although in nearly the same 
style, it is a much more poetical specimen of that 
style than the "Address." And that it was looked 
upon by Humphreys's contemporaries as a true 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 407 

poem, or at least as a work of great merit, may be 
fairly inferred from the fact that it passed through 
ten editions in the author's lifetime. If I should be 
thought to have dwelt longer upon Humphreys's 
defects than the subject required, remember that 
in the eyes of his contemporaries he was more 
especially the poet of the Revolution, that he was 
the first to attempt a picture in verse of the scenes 
of the war, and the first to whose pages Europeans 
went for indications of the poetical promise of the 
new nation. 

It is with reluctance that I pass by that singular 
instance of African genius, Boston trained, PhilHs 
Wheatley, whose verses lose nothing by a compar- 
ison with those of Dwight and Barlow. Freneau's 
Muse, too, began her multitudinous labors while 
the war was still raging, producing, at least, one 
piece of real value, — the lines on the battle of 
Eutaw ; and other names might be added to the 
catalogue, if to make a catalogue were my aim. 
But it is the character of the poetry that we are 
studying, and the true nature of the poetical ele- 
ment, and these are best found in the writings of 
the acknowledged masters of song. 

We have seen that in their serious attempts 
these masters failed. In humorous poetry, how- 
ever, one among them was, if not fully successful, 
yet enough so to deserve honorable mention among 
the writers of his class, and to interest and amuse 
even the readers of an age familiar with the keen 



408 LECTURE XII. 

satire of Lowell and the sparkling wit of Holmes. 
This was John Trumbull, of Connecticut, whose 
long life, beginning in 1750, reached down to 
1831 : the friend and fellow-laborer of Dwight, 
and Humphreys, and Barlow, yet living to see 
with his own eyes the birth of a new literature, 
and read the early verses of Bryant and Long- 
fellow. Trumbull's serious poems are neither very 
numerous nor veiy good. The longest of them is 
an " Elegy on the Times," written at Boston dur- 
ing the operation of the Port Bill. I select the 
closing stanzas both as the best and because they 
express with much force an opinion, which does 
not seem to have been confined to poets, that the 
loss of the Colonies would be the ruin of Eng- 
land : — 

" And where is Britain 1 In the skirt of day, 
Where stormy Neptune rolls his utmost tide, 
Where suns oblique diffuse a feeble ray, 
And lonely streams the fated coasts divide, 

" Seest thou yon Isle, whose desert landscape yields 
The mournful traces of the fame she bore, 
Whose matted thorns oppress tli' uncultured fields. 
And piles of ruin load the dreary shore ? 

" From those loved scats, the virtues sad withdrew 
From fell corruption's bold and venal hand ; 
Reluctant Freedom waved her last adieu. 
And devastation swept the Vassalled land. 

" On her white cliffs, the pillars once of fame, 
Her melancholy Genius sits to wail. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 409 

Drops the fond tear, and o'er her latest shame 
Bids dark oblivion draw th' eternal veil." * 

But Trumbull's time field was satire, — not the 
elaborate didactic satire of Pope, but the swift 
moving, narrative satire of Butler. Hudibras 
must have been his favorite study ; and it must 
be acknowledged that he, more than once, caught 
the spirit of his great master. His verse has some- 
thing of the same rapid and spontaneous flow, and 
his rhymes come with something of the same ease 
from remote distances. It should be remembered, 
however, that while Butler's style is the low bur- 
lesque, Trumbull, with great judgment, has chosen 
the high.f 

But Butler's wit was fed from an exhaustless 
fountain of learning. He not only surprises you 
by the novelty and variety of his illustrations, but 
often compels you to pause and follow out the 
trains of thought that he suggests. Trumbull's 
subject, it may be said, would hardly have ad- 
mitted of this, but it is equally certain that his 
learning fell far short of that apparent mastery 
over the whole field of erudition, which was a 
principal source of Butler's power. 

The earliest of his humorous poems was " The 

* An " Elegy on the Times," Trumbull's "Works, Vol. II. 
(205) 217. 

t See Trumbull's letter to the Marquis de Chastellux in the 
Appendix to the second volume of Goodrich's edition of Tram- 
bull's Works. 

18 



410 LECTURE XII. 

Progress of Dulness," which may still be read 
Avith pleasure. But the work by which he was 
best known, and with which his name is miiver- 
sally associated, is the mock epic of " MacFingal." 
This work, so full of the spmt of the times, was 
begun in 1775, just after the battle of Lexing- 
ton, and the first part was published in Philadel- 
phia, during the session of the great Congress of 
Independence. Its object was purely political, to 
rouse the courage of the Whigs by a ludicrous yet 
faithful picture of the Tories. And so well was 
the time chosen, and so felicitous was the execu- 
tion that it became a favorite with all classes, pass- 
ing through thirty editions, in the author's Hfetime, 
although, for want of a law of copyright, he de- 
rived no pecuniary advantage except from one of 
them. It was not till the last year of the war 
that the remaining cantos were added, when it 
assumed the form which it now bears, of a " Mod- 
em Epic " in four cantos. 

I regret that my limits will not permit me to 
enter into a careful exammation of this remai'kable 
poem and bring it to the standard of the Lutrin, 
the Dispensary, and the Rape of the Lock, as 
well as to the standard of Hudibras. It would 
well repay the labor and the time ; but the hour is 
passing and we have still more ground to go over. 
An outline of its plan and a few extracts as speci- 
mens of the execution are all I can give. 

The plot is a very simple one, yet in its simpli- 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 411 

city true to the life of the times. The hero, Mac- 
Fingal, is a Tory of the deepest dye. Honorius 
is a Whio;, The battle-m-ound is first that true 
New England ground, a town-meeting ; and then 
that characteristic ground of the period, the space 
around the Liberty-pole. Tlie first two books are 
given to the town-meeting, where MacFingal re- 
counts the exploits of the English, the enormities 
of the Rebels, and draws pictures, meant to be 
terrifying, of their impending doom. The voice 
of Honorius is di'owned by the clamor of the 
Tories, while his fluent adversary pours forth a 
mingled strain of narrative, prophecy, and re- 
proach. Dinner-time comes, and the meeting 
adjourns. The debate is resumed in the after- 
noon ; but meanwhile the Whigs on the outside 
are busily engaged in raising a liberty-pole. Their 
shouts rise above the voice of the orator. The 
audience hurry out to see what this new uproar 
means : MacFingal with them. At the sight of 
the pole he bursts into a fresh torrent of invective ; 
calls upon the constable to read the Riot Act, and 
summons his adherents to aid him in tearing down 
the obnoxious emblem. A battle ensues. The 
Whigs are victorious. The unfortunate orator 
is seiy.ed, tried, condemned to tar and feathers, 
and the seiitence carried into instant execution. 
Instructed by misfortune, MacFingal collects his 
friends by night in his cellar, foretells the general 
history of the war, and at the approach of his 



412 LECTURE XII. 

adversaries, who have discovered the Toiy gather- 
ing and are upon the point of breaking in upon 
them, steals" through a window known only to 
himself, and makes his way to Boston as best he 
can. 

The opening will remind you of Hudibras : — 

" When Yankees, skilled in martial rule, 
First put the British troops to school ; 
Instructed them in warlike trade 
And new manoeuvres of parade, 
The true war-dance of Yankee reels, 
And manual exercise of heels ; 
Made them give up, like saints complete, 
The arm of flesh and trust the feet. 
And work, like Christians undissembling, 
Salvation out, by fear and trembling ; 
Taught Percy fashionable races 
And modern modes of Chevy Chases ; 
From Boston in his best array 
Great Squire MacFingal took his way, 
And, graced with ensigns of renown. 
Steered homeward to his native town." 

I pass reluctantly over the story of his origin, 
with the humorous allusion to Ossian : and the 
more humorous narrative of the conversion of 
his family from Jacobitism to Toryism, in which 
King George figures as a king 

" Whom every Scot and Jacobite 
Strait fell in love with at first sight ; 
Whose gracious speech, with aid of pensions, 
Hushed down all murmurs of dissensions." 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 413 

But this Hi'o-liland orio-in manifests itself in the 
true form of hereditary transmission of quahties, — 

" Whence gained our Squire two gifts by right, 
Rebellion and the second sight," — 

and must not, therefore, be forgotten. The latter 
gift is not allowed to lie idle : — 

" No ancient sibyl, famed in rhyme, 
Saw deeper in the womb of time. 

He for oracles was grown 
The very tripod of the town. 
Gazettes no sooner rose a lie in, 
But strait he fell to prophesying ; 
Made dreadful slaughter in his course, 
O'erthrew Pi'ovincials, foot and horse. 
Brought armies o'er by sudden pressings 
Of Hanoverians, Swiss, and Hessians, 
Feasted with blood his Scottish clan. 
And hanged all rebels to a man, 
Divided their estates and pelf. 
And took a goodly share himself. 
All this with spirit energetic 
He did by second sight prophetic." 

The gift of eloquence follows, of course : — 

" Thus stored with intellectual riches. 
Skilled was our Squire in making speeches ; 
Where strength of brains united centres 
With strength of lungs surpassing Stentor's." 

But his eloquence is more remarkable for 
warmth than for logic : — 



414 LECTURE XII. 

" But as some muskets so contrive it, 
As oft to miss the mark they drive at, 
And, though well aimed at duck or plover, 
Bear wide and kick their owners over. 
So fared our Squire, whose reasoning toil 
"Would often on himself recoil. 
And so much injured more his side. 
The stronger arguments he applied ; 
As old war-elephants, dismayed, 
Trod down the troops they came to aid. 
And hurt their own side more in battle 
Than less and ordinary cattle." 

Still he was a leader, and in the statement of 
the fact you will observe the side hit at party 
majorities : — 

" Yet at town-meetings every chief 
Pinned faith on great MacFingal's sleeve ; 
Which when he lifted, all by rote 
Raised sympathetic hands to vote." 

Such is the hero. The town, 

" his scene of action. 
Had long been torn by feuds of faction," 

weaving " cobwebs for the public weal," which re- 
mind how 

" that famed weaver, wife t' Ulj'sses, 
By night her day's work picked in pieces, 
And though she stoutly did bestir her, 
Its finishing was ne'er the nearer." 

For the townsfolk 

" met, made speeches, full long-winded, 
Eesolved, protested, and rescinded." 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 415 

It is evident that the author was not bhnd to the 
faults of his friends. 

" And now the town was summoned greeting, 
To grand parading of town-meeting." 

The place of meeting is the village church, which 
gives him an opportunity for another stroke of 
satire : — 

" Tliat house, which, loath a rule to break. 
Served heaven but one day in the week, — 
Open the rest for all supplies 
Of news, and politics, and lies." 

The constable stands 



" High o'er the rout on pulpit stairs 

The moderator's upper half 

In grandeur o'er the cusliion bowed, 

Like Sol half seen behind a cloud." 

What New-Englander, of even the last genera- 
tion, would fail to recognize the scene ? 

" Our Squire, returning late," 

finds Honorius in possession of the floor, and is 
compelled to listen awhile, with " sour faces," to 
a Whig's views of England and her policy, and 
how she 

" Sent fire and sword, and called it Lenity ; 
Starved us, and christened it Humanity." 

And, 

" spite of prayers her schemes pursuing, 
She still went on to work our ruin ; 



416 LECTURE XII. 

Annulled our charters of releases, 

And tore our title deeds to pieces ; 

Then signed her warrants of ejection, 

And gallows raised to stretch our necks on ; 

And on these errands sent in rage 

Her bailiff and her hangman. Gage." 

The portrait of Gage is not flattering : — 

" No state e'er chose a fitter person 
To carry such a silly farce on. 
As heathen gods, in ancient days. 
Received at second hand their praise, 
Stood imaged forth in stones and stocks, 
And deified in barber's blocks ; 
So Gage was chose to represent 
Th' omnipotence of Parliament." 

You know that serious accusations of untruthful- 
ness were brought against the British commander. 
Our author traces the habit to a natural source, 
but adds, that with all that master's assistance he 
never had 

" The wit to tell a lie with art." 

And MacFingal defends the royal Governor, for, 
says he, 

" As men's last wills may change again. 
Though drawn ' In name of God, Amen ' ; 
Be sure they must have clearly more 
O'er promises as great a power, 
Which made in haste, with small inspection, 
So much the more will need correction ; 
And when they 've careless spoke or penned 'em, 
Have a right to look them o'er and mend 'em ; 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 417 

Revive their vows or change the text, 

By way of codicil annexed ; 

Strike out a pi'omise tliat was base, 

And put a better in its place. 

So Gage, of late agreed, you know, 

To let the Boston people go ; 

Yet when he saw 'gainst troops that braved him 

They were the only guards that saved him, 

Kept off that Satan of a Putnam 

From breaking in to maul and mutton him. 

He 'd too much wit such leagues t' observe. 

And shut them in again to starve." 

The forenoon session leaves the Tory orator in 
the possession of the floor, and at his suggestion 
the meeting adjourns for dinner. The second 
book opens : — 

" The sun, who never stops to dine. 
Two hours had passed the mid-way line, 
And, driving at his usual rate, 
Lashed on his downward car of state. 
And now expired the short vacation, 
And dinner o'er in epic fashion. 
While all the crow beneath the trees 
Ate apple pies and bread and cheese, 
(Nor shall we, like old Homer, care 
To versify their bill of fare,) 
Each active party, feasted well. 
Thronged in, like sheep, at sound of bell ; 
With equal spirit took their places. 
And meeting oped with three Oh Yesses; 
When first, the daring Whigs t' oppose. 
Again the great MacFingal rose. 
Stretched magisterial arm amain. 
And thus resumed th' accusing strain." 
18* AA 



418 LECTURE XII. 

It would be easy to fill pages with extracts fi'ora 
the afternoon session. I should particularly like 
to give you in ftiU the character of Burgoyne and 
the summary of English achievements. But I 
must confine myself to two. And first, Enghsh 
benefits and American ingratitude : — 

" Ungrateful sons, a factious band, 
That rise against your parent land, 

And scorn tlie debt and obligation 
You justly owe the British nation, 
Which, since you cannot pay, your crew 
Affect to swear was never due. 

" Did not the deeds of England's Primate 
First drive your fathers to tliis climate. 
Whom jails and fines and every ill 
Forced to their good against their will ? 
Ye owe to their obliging temper 
The peopling your new-fangled empire. 
While every British act and canon 
Stood forth your causa sine qua non. 
Who 'd seen, except fc tliese restraints, 
Your witches, Quaker., Whigs, and saints. 
Or heard of Matlier's famed Magnalia, 
If Charles and Laud had chanced to fail you? 
Did they not send your charters o'er, 
And give you lands you owned before. 
Permit you all to spill your blood. 
And drive out heathens when you could ; 
On these .mild terms that conquest won, 
The realm you gained should be their own ? 

Say at what period did they grudge 
To send you Governor or Judge, 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 419 

With all their missionary crew 

To teach you law and gospel too ? 

They brought all felons in the nation 

To help you on in population ; 

Proposed their Bishops to surrender, 

And made tlieir Priests a legal tender, 

Who only asked, in surplice clad, 

The simple tithe of all you had : 

And now, to keep all knaves in awe, 

Have sent their troops t' establish law, 

And with gunpowder, fire, and ball, 

Reform your people one and all. 

Yet when their insolence and pride 

Have angered all the world beside. 

When fear and want at once invade, 

Can you refuse to lend them aid, 

And rather risk your heads in fight, 

Than gratefully throw in your mite? 

Can they for debts make satisfaction, 

Should they dispose their realm at auction, 

And sell oft' Britain's goods and land all 

To France and Spain by inch of candle ? 

Shall good King George, with want oppressed, 

Insert his name in bankrupt list ? 

With poverty shall princes strive 
And nobles lack whereon to live'^ 

And who believes you will not run ? 
You 're cowards, every mother's son, 
And if you offer to deny, 
We 've witnesses to prove it by." 

This, of course, is meant for Amherst, Grant, 
and the other revilers of American courage. The 
" British Lion" sits for his portrait too : — 



1 



420 LECTURE XII. 

" Have you not roused, his force to try on. 
That grim old beast, the British Lion ? 
And know you not that at a sup 
He 's large enough to eat you up ? 
Have you surveyed his jaws beneath, 
Drawn inventories of his teeth, 
Or have you weighed in even balance, 
His strength and magnitude of talons ? 
His roar would change your boasts to fear 
As easily as sour small beer." 

The partisans of England had boasted of her 
humanity. You remember how Gage writes to 
Washington that " Britons, ever pre-eminent in 
mercy, have outgone common examples, and 
overlooked the criminal in the captive." * Mac- 
Fingal tells us in what sense the word is used : — 

" For now in its primeval sense 
This term, humanitij, comprehends 
All things of which, on this side hell, 
The human mind is capable ; 
And thus 't is well, by writers sage, 
Applied to Briton and to Gage." 

The expedition to Salem and the battle of 
Lexington are told with much humor and many 
keen strokes of satire. But it is in the future that 
the second-sighted orator finds amplest room for 
the display of his powers. Let me premise, hoAv- 
ever, before I read from this passage, that the 
Marshfield Resolves were a very bombastic and 
silly outbreak of Toryism, which foiuid a worthy 

* Gage to Washington. Sparks's Washington, Vol. III. p. 
500, Appendix VII. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 421 

representative in a certain Abijah White ; and 
that British officers, mistaking the winding of 
the " small and sullen horn " of the beetle and 
the whizzing of mosquitoes for more formidable 
sounds, wrote home, that in their evening walk on 
Beacon Hill they had been shot at by the Yankees 
with air-guns. Need I remind you that, trifles as 
these are, they throw a light upon the passions and 
feehngs, the misconceptions and prejudices of the 
times, which nothing else could give ? The silly 
Elijah, with his " dread array of commissions, pis- 
tols, swords, resolves," is the bullying, blustering 
Tory, as the Tory often appeared to our fathers. 
The English officers who " muskitoes take for- 
musketeers," are the conceited, foppish cockneys, 
who believed that every Colonist was a savage, 
and that scalping, if not roasting, was as much a 
pastime of the Yankee as of the Indian. There 
were honest men among the Tories, — honest, 
though sadly misguided ; well-informed men 
among the British officers, — though not well- 
informed enough to distinguish the right from 
the wrong of this contest. But if we would 
form a correct idea of the period we must study 
both classes, and for the first, MacFingal is our 
best authority : — 

"But now your triumphs all are o'er. 
For see from Britain's angry shore, 
With deadly hosts of valor join 
Her Howe, her Clinton, and Burgoyne, 



422 LECTURE XII. 

As comets through th' affriglited skies 
Pour baleful ruin as they rise ; 
As iEtna with infernal roar 
In conflagration sweeps the shore ; 
Or as Abijah White, when sent 
Our Marshficld friends to represent, 
Himself while dread array involves, 
Commissions, pistols, swords, resolves. 
In awful pomp descending down 
Bore terror on the factious town : 
Not with less glory and affright 
Parade these generals forth to fight. 
No more each British colonel nins 
Prom whizzing beetles as air-guns ; 
Thinks hornbugs bullets, or thro' fears 
Muskitocs takes for musketeers; 
Nor 'scapes, as if you 'd gained supplies, 

• From Beelzebub's whole host of flies. 
No bug these warlike hearts appalls. 
They better know the sound of balls. 
I hear the din of battle bray ; 
The trump of horror marks its way. 
I see afar the sack of cities. 
The gallows sti-ung with Wbig committees; 
Your moderators triced like vermin. 
And gate-posts graced with heads of chairmen ; 
Your Congress for wave offerings hanging, 
And ladders thronged with priests haranguing. 
What pillories glad the Tories' eyes 
With patriot ears for sacrifice ! 
What whipping-posts your chosen race 

. Admit successive in embrace. 

While each bears off his sins, alack ! 
Like Bunyan's pilgrim, on his back. 
Where then when Tories scarce get clear 
Shall Whigs and Congresses appear 1 " 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 423 

But I must hasten to the catastrophe. I pass 
over the breaking up of the meeting, the hberty- 
pole with its characteristic inauguration, the side- 
way thrust at the slave-trade, as tlie flag 

" Inscribed with inconsistent types 
Of Libefly and thirteen stripes," 

and how 

" Beneath the crowd without delay 
"The dedication rites essay, 
And gladly pay in ancient fashion 
The ceremonies of libation ; 
Wliile briskly to each patriot lip 
Walks eager round the inspiring flip." 

I pass over these and the Squire's harangue, and 
the fight and overthrow, to dwell for a moment on 
the sentence and its execution : — 

" Meanwhile beside the pole, the guard 
A Bench of Justice had prepared, 
Where, sitting round in awful sort. 
The grand committee hold theii* court 
While all the crew in silent awe 
Wait from their lips the lore of law. 
Few moments with deliberation 
They hold the solemn consultation; 
When soon in judgment all agree 
And clerk proclaims the dread decree, — 

" That Squire MacFingal having grown 
The vilest Tory in the town, 
And now in full examination 
Convicted by liis own confession, 



424 LECTURE XII. 

Finding no tokens of repentance 
This court proceeds to render sentence ; 
That, first, the mob a slip-knot single 
Tie round the neck of said MacFingal, 
And in due form do tar him next, 
And feather as the law directs ; 
Then through the town attendant ride him 
In cart with constable beside him. 
And, having held him up to shame. 
Bring to the pole from whence he came. 
" Forthwith the crowd proceed to dock 
"With haltered noose MacFingal's neck, 
Wliile he in peril of his soul 
Stood tied half dangling to the pole ; 
Then, lifting high the ponderous jar. 
Poured o'er his head the smoldng tar. 
With less profusion once was spread 
Oil on the Jewish monarch's head, 
That down his beard and vestments ran. 
And covered ail his outward man. 
As when (so Claudian sings) the gods 
And earth-born giants fell at odds, 
The stout Enceladus in malice 
Tore mountains up to throw at Pallas ; 
And while he held them o'er his head. 
The river, from their fountains fed. 
Poured down his back its copious tide. 
And wore its channels in his hide : 
So from the high-raised urn the torrents 
Spread down his side their various currents; 
His flowing wig, as next the brim, 
First met and drank the sable stream ; 
Adown his visage stern and grave 
Rolled and adhered the viscid wave; 
With arms depending as he stood, 
Each cuflF capacious holds the flood ; 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 425 

From nose and chin's remotest end 

The tany icicles descend ; 

Till all o'erspread with colors gay, 

He glittered to the western ray, 

Like slcet-bound trees in wintry skies, 

Or Lapland idol carved in ice. 

And now the feather-bag displayed 

Is waved in triumph o'er his head, 

And clouds him o'er with feathers missive. 

And down, upon the tar, adhesive. 

Not Maia's son, with wings for ears, 

Such plumage round his visage wears ; 

Nor Milton's six-winged angel gathers 

Such superfluity of feathers. 

Now all complete appears our Squire, 

Like Gorgon or Chimoera dire ; 

Nor more could boast, on Plato's plan. 

To rank among the race of man, 

Or prove his claim to human nature. 

As a two-legged, unfeathered creature." 

The carting follows next : — 

" In front the martial music comes 
Of horns and fiddles, fifes and drums. 
With jingling sound of carriage-bells. 
And treble creak of rusted wheels. 
Behind, the crowd, in lengthened row 
With proud procession, closed the show." 

The crowd disperses, and our hero and his 
faithful friend, the constable, remain alone. Poor 
MacFingal ! 

" Though his body lacked physician, 
His spirit was in worse condition." 

And as 



426 LECTURE XII. 

" All goes wrong in Church and State, 
Seen through prospective of the grate ; 
So now MacFingal's second sight 
Beheld all things in diflerent light. 
His visual nerve, well purged with tar, 
Saw all the coming scenes of war. 
As his prophetic soul grew stronger, 
He found he could hold in no longer. 
First from the pole, as fierce he shook, 
His wig from pitchy durance broke, 
His mouth unglucd, his feathei-s fluttered. 
His tarred skirts cracked, and thus he uttered." 

The fourth canto opens with the gathering of 
the Tories by night in MacFingal's cellar. 

" Now night came down, and rose full soon 
That patroness of rogues, the moon ; 
Beneath whose kind protecting ray. 
Wolves, brute and human, prowl for prey. 
The honest world all snored in chorus, 
While owls and ghosts and thieves and Tories, 
Whom erst the mid-day sun had awed. 
Crept from their lui-king holes abroad. 

"On cautious hinges, slow and stiller, 
Wide oped the great MacFingal's cellar, 
Where safe from prying eyes in cluster 
The Tory Pandemonium muster. 
Their chiefs all sitting round descried arc 
On kegs of ale and seats of cider ; 
When first MacFingal, dimly seen, 
Rose solemn from the turnip-bin. 
Nor yet his form had wholly lost 
Th' original brightness it could boast, 
Nor less appeared than Justice Quorum, 
In feathered majesty before 'em. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 427 

AdowTi his tar-streaked visage, clear, 
Fell glistening fast th' indignant tear, 
And thus his voice, in mournful wise, 
Pursued the prologue of his sighs." 

This book, you will remember, was written in 
1782, and tluis the outline of the war, which is its 
principal subject, is historically correct. It is not 
inferior to the rest of the work in spirit and hu- 
mor ; one passage, indeed, and that aimed less al 
the enemy than at the errors of his own party, it, 
fiill of true invention. 

" When lo, an awful spectre rose, 
With languid paleness on his brows ; 
Wan dropsies swelled his form beneath, 
And iced his bloated cheeks with death ; 
His tattered robes exposed him bare 
To every blast of ruder air ; 
On two weak crutches propped he stood, 
That bent at every step he trod ; 
Gilt titles graced their sides so slender, 
One ' Regulation,' t' other ' Tender ' ; 
His brcasplate graved with various dates, 
' The faith of all th' United States ' ; 
Before him went his funeral pall, 
His grave stood, dug to wait his fall." 

This disgusting figure is " the ghost of Conti- 
nental money," and if you have not forgotten the 
lecture of the other evening, you will readily ac- 
knowledge the faithfulness of the portrait. 

To do full justice to Tnimbull, it would be 
necessary to examine many other passages, point- 
ing out, among other things, the happy use that 



428 LECTURE XII. 

he makes of Homer and Virgil and Milton, and 
claiming for liim the lines that have passed into 
proverbs, and been attributed to other writers. 
One instance will illustrate my meaning : — 

" What rogue e'er felt the halter draw 
With good opinion of the law ? " 

How often, and even by those who should have 
known better, has this been quoted as Butler's ? 

You will easily conceive what an impression 
such a work must have made at such a time, how 
it must have awakened the dormant mirth of many 
an evening circle, and called forth shouts of mer- 
riment at the winter camp-fire ; awakening at the 
same time, slumbering faith, and strengthening 
wavering resolution. Of the welcome it met, its 
thirty editions are sufficient proof, and if you 
would understand the men and the passions of our 
Revolution, you must study it as a running com- 
mentary, a photogi^aphic illustration, of Sparks, 
and Force, and Hildretli, and Irving. 

Of the songs and ballads of the Revolution, 
there is little to say. They have been carefully 
collected by Frank Moore, and carefully studied 
by the Duyckinks. They were not unsuited, 
perhaps, to the times, meeting, as events occurred, 
the popular need of a concentrated expression of 
popular feeling. But, though rough and un- 
adorned, their simplicity is not the artless expres- 
sion of sentiment, nor the artless picturesqueness 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 429 

of narrative, which belong to the old ballad. 
They have the stamp of a later age upon them, of 
the age Avhen poetry has passed from the wander- 
ing; ministrel to the author's closet, from the un- 
cultivated classes to the cultivated classes. Now 
and then you meet a striking line in them, and 
even a fine stanza ; but seldom sustained power, 
whether of pathos or of humor. 

Of the numerous ballads on Cornwallis, " The 
Dance " has some lively stanzas, and one excel- 
lent one. 

" Cornwallis led a country dance, 
The like was never seen, sir. 
Much retrogi-ade and much advance. 
And all with General Greene, sir. 

" They rambled up and rambled down, 
Joined hands and off they run, sir, 
Our General Greene to Charlestown, 
The earl to Wilmington, sir. 

" Greene, in the South, then danced a set, 
And got a mighty name, sir, 
Cornwallis jigged with young Fayette 
And suffered in his fame, sir." 

Washington appears on the scene, and in de- 
scribing him the ixnknown poet catches for a mo- 
ment the true spirit of his art. 

*' And "Washington, Columbia's son, 
"Whom easy natui-e taught, sir. 
That grace which can't by pains be won. 
Or Plutus' gold be bought, su'." 



430 LECTURE XII. 

There is true satire in the " Etiquette," but 
there is no proof that it was written by an Ameri- 
can, and therefore I make no extracts. For the 
same reaon I pass over the " Volunteer's Song," 
and the " Recess." But " CHnton's Invitation to 
the Refugees " is truly American, and in a strain 
of keen satire that Freneau seldom reached. 

" Come, gentlemen Tories, firm, loyal, and true, 
Here are axes and shovels and something to do ! 

For the sake of our king. 

Come labor and sing. 
You left all you had for his honor and glory. 
And he will remember the suffering Tory. 

We have, it is true, 

Some small work to do ; 
But here 's for your pay, twelve coppers a day. 
And never regard what the rebels may say. 
But throw off your jerkins and labor away. 

" To raise up the rampart, and pile up the wall. 
To pull down old houses, and dig the canal, 

To build and destroy, 

Be this your employ. 
In the day-time to work at our fortifications, 
And steal, in the night, from the rebels your rations. 

The king wants your aid. 

Not empty parade. 
Advance to your places, ye men of long faces, 
Nor ponder too much on your former disgraces, 
This year, I presume, will quite alter your cases. 

" Attend at the call of the fifer and drummer. 
The French and the rebels are coming next summer. 
And the forts we must build, 
Though Tories are killed. 



^ 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 431 

Take courage, my jockics, and work for your king, 
For if you arc taken, no doubt you will swing. 

If York we can hold 

I will have you enrolled ; 
And after you 're dead, your names shall be read, 
As who for their monarch both labored and bled, 
And ventured their necks for their beef and their bread. 

" 'T is an honor to serve the bravest of nations, 
And be left to be hanged in their capitulations. 

Then scour up your mortars, 

And stand to your quarters, 
'T is nonsense for Tories in battle to run. 
They never need fear sword, halberd, or gun ; 

Their hearts should not fail 'em. 

No balls will assail 'em ; 
Forget your disgraces, and shorten your faces. 
For 't is true as the Gospel, believe it or not. 
Who are born to be hanged will never be shot." 

Burgoyiie's defeat is celebrated in various me- 
tres. Sullivan's Island, Trenton, King's Moun- 
tain, Yorktown, are sung in verses which may 
have sounded well around a mess-table or a 
camp-fire, — may have read well in a broadside or 
a newspaper of the day, — but which appear tame 
and awkward in a printed volume. But of the 
humorous, nay, witty ballads, the " Battle of the 
Kegs " will bear a comparison with the best of its 
kind, and I think you will all agree with me that, 
though unequal in parts, there is simplicity, a hap- 
py choice of illustrative circumstances, delicacy of 
thought, sweetness of numbers, and a full, deep 



432 LECTURE XII. 

flow of natural pathos in tlie ballad of Nathan 
Hale. 

BATTLE OF THE IvEGS. 

Gallants attend, and hear a friend, 

Trill forth harmonious ditty, 
Strange thinL;s I '11 tell, wliich late befell 

In Philadelphia city. 

'T was early day, as poets say, 

Just when the sun was rising, 
A soldier stood on log of wood. 

And saw a sight surprising. 

As in amaze, he stood to gaze, 

. The truth can't be denied, sir. 
He spied a score of kegs or more 
Come floating do\vn the tide, sir: 

A sailor, too, in jerkin blue, 

This strange appearance viewing, 
First damned his eyes in great surprise, 

Then said, " Some mischief 's brewing. 

" Those kegs, I 'm told, the rebels hold. 

Packed up like pickled herring, 
And they 're come down t' attack the town 

In this new way of ferrying." 

The soldier flew, the sailor too, 

And scared almost to death, sir, 
Wore out their shoes to spread the news. 

And ran till out of breath, sir. 

Now up and down, throughout the town, 

Most frantic scenes were acted ; 
And some ran here, and others there, 

Like men almost distracted. 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 433 

Some fire cried, which some denied, 

But said the earth had quaked ; 
And girls and boys with hideous noise, 

Ean through the streets half naked. 

And now the alarm reaches Sir William, who 
all this time had lain in his y>f^ " snug as a flea," 
nor " dreamed of harm." 

Now in a fright he starts upright, 

Awakea Dy such a clatter ; 
He rubs his eyes, and boldly cries, 

" For God's sake what 's the matter 1 " 

At his bedside he then espied 

Sir Erskine at command, sir. 
Upon one foot he had one boot. 

And t' other in liis liand, sir. 

" Arise, arise," Sir Erskine cries, 

" The rebels, more 's the pity, 
Without a boat, are all afloat. 

And ranged before the city. 

" The motley crew in vessels new, y 

With Satan for their guide, sir. 
Packed up in bags or wooden kegs 

Come dri^-ing down the tide, sir. 

" Therefore prepare for bloody war, 

These kegs must all be routed, 
Or surely we despised shall be. 

And British courage doubted." 

The royal band now ready stand. 

All ranged in di'cad an-ay, sir. 
With stomachs stout to see it out, 

And make a bloody day, sir. 
19 



434 LECTURE XII. 

The cannons roar from shore to shore. 

The small arms make a rattle, 
Since wars began I 'm sure no man 

Ere saw so strange a battle. 

The rebel dales, the rebel vales 

With rebel trees surrounded, 
The distant woods, the hills and floods, 

With rebel echoes sounded. 

The fish below swam to and fro. 

Attacked from every quarter ; 
Why sure, thought they, the devil 's to pay 

'Mongst folks above the water. 

The kegs, 't is said, tliough strongly made 

Of rebel staves and hoops, sir, 
Could not oppose their powerful foes. 

The conquering Britisli troops, sir. 

From mom till night, these men of might 

Displayed amazing courage ; 
And when the sun was fairly down. 

Retired to sup their porridge. 

An hundred men with each a pen, 

Or more, upon my word, sir. 
It is most true, would be too few, 

Their valor to record, sir. 

Such feats did they perform that day, 

Against those wicked kegs, sir. 
That years to come, if they get home. 

They '11 make their boasts and brags, sir. 

But I cannot close so serious a subject with so 
tnerry a strain. Let me ask you rather to recall 
vhat I told you, in my Lecture on the Martyrs of 



LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTnn/. 435 

the Revolution, of Nathan Hale, one of the truest 
and noblest of those true and noble men. I trust 
that American poetry has yet a fitting place for 
him : though should eyen the greatest among oui 
poets tell his story, I should be loath to have the 
tender and touching tribute of an unknown con- 
temporary forgotten. 

A BALLAD. 

The breezes went steadily through the tall pines, 
A saying " Oh ! hu-ush," a saying " Oh ! hu-ush ! " 

As stilly stole by a bold legion of horse, 
For Hale in the bush, for Hale in the bush. 

" Keep still," said the thrush as she nestled her young 
In a nest by the road, in a nest by the road ; 

"For the tyrants are near, and with them appear 
What bodes us no good, what bodes us no good." 

The brave Captain heard it, and thought of his home 
In a cot by the brook, in a cot by the brook ; 

With mother and sister and memories dear, 
He so gayly forsook, he so gayly forsook. 

Cooling shades of the night were coming apace, 

The tattoo had beat, the tattoo had beat ; 
The noble one sprang from, his dark lurking-place, 

To make his retreat, to make his retreat. 

He warily trod on the dry rustling leaves, 

As he passed thro' the wood, as he passed thro' the TTOod ; 
And silently gained his rude launch on the shore, 

As she played with the flood, as she played with the floo^ 

The guards of the camp, on that dark, dreary night, 
Had a murderous will, had a murderous will. 



436 LECTURE XII. 

They took liim and bore liira afar from the shore. 
To a hut on the hill, to a hut on the hill. 

No mother was there, nor a friend who could cheer. 
In that little stone cell, in that little stone cell; 

But he trusted in love from his Father above, 

In his heart all was well, in his heart all was well. 

An ominous owl, with his solemn base voice, 
Sat moaning hard by, sat moaning hard by, 

" The tyrant's proud minions most gladly rejoice, 
For he must soon die, for he must soon die." 

The brave fellow told them, no thing he restrained, 

The cruel gen'ral, the cruel gen'ral. 
Of his errand from camp, of the end to be gained. 

And said that was all, and said that was all. 

They took him and bound him and bore him away, 

Down the hill's grassy side, down the hill's grassy side j 

'T was there the base hirelings in royal array 
His cause did deride, his cause did deride. 

Five minutes were given, short moments, no more. 

For him to repent, for him to repent; 
He prayed for his mother, he asked not another, — 

To Heaven he went, to Heaven he went. 

The faith of a martyr the tragedy showed, 
As he trod the last stage, as he trod the last stage; 

And Britons will shudder at gallant Hale's blood. 
As his words do presage, as his words do presage. 

Thou pale king of terrors, thou life's gloomy foe. 
Go frighten the slave, go frighten the slave ; 

Tell tyrants, to you their allegiance they owe. 
No fears for the brave, no fears for the brave. 



CONCLUSION. 437 

And now at tlie close of this long course permit 
me to give a rapid glance at the ground over which 
we have passed, remembering that, while history is 
the record of man's acts, it is still more eminently 
the interpreter of God's will. As the record of 
man's acts, we find much to humiliate and sadden 
us; as the interpreter of God's will, we find every- 
thing to animate us in the performance of duty, 
and sustain us under the trials and sacrifices which 
it may impose. 

It is impossible at this grave moment of our 
country's fortunes to read the history of our War 
of Independence without comparing it, as we read, 
with that other war which is daily unfolding its vi- 
cissitudes before our eyes, — our war of fulfilment 
and preservation. 

They are alike, for they are both wars of prin- 
ciple, and therefore wars of progress. There is 
no mistaking the cause of progress. Every re- 
sponsibility carries with it a corresponding right ; 
and true progress, if history be true, is the recipro- 
cal evolution of responsibility from right, and of 
right from responsibility, and the harmonious de- 
velopment of both. Man's right to appropriate the 
earth to his own use involves the responsibility of 
cultivating it industriously and judiciously ; and 
this responsibility, honestly fulfilled, gives him a 
right to a controlling voice in the disposal of the 
products of his cultivation. It was in this light 
that our fathers judged the legislation of the Brit- 



438 LECTURE XII. 

ish Parliament, and in this light must their great 
struggle be judged. 

But underlying this right was the right of per- 
sonal freedom as the result of personal responsi- 
bility at the bar of God. Now this conclusion, 
although a logical sequence, many among them 
failed to reach, while those who reached it specu- 
latively being unable to give it substantial expres- 
sion by incorporating it with their new institutions, 
left the completion of their sacrifices and labors as 
a responsibility for their children, and in full faith 
that it would be faithfully met. 

And tluis our present war is the logical sequence 
of our War of Independence, as the War of Inde- 
pendence was the logical sequence of the compact 
signed in the cabin of the Mayflower. And thus 
from sequence to cause, tracing upwards the stream 
of time, we bind in one connected chain the Proc- 
lamation of President Lincoln with the Declaration 
of Independence, and the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence with the Charter of Runnymede. If you 
would judge an historical event you must study it 
in its sequences, you must penetrate to the right 
on which it rests, the responsibility which it in- 
volves, and if there be life and development in it, 
it is progress, and, inasmuch as it is progress, the 
irresistible expression of the will of God. 

Thus alike in their origin, — the war of our 
fathers on the part of England being like our 
own war on the part of the South, — acts of 



CONCLUSION. 439 

blind resistance to the ine^dtable development of 
a great natural law, — they are also alike in many 
of the practical lessons which they convey. In 
both, while great virtues have been displayed, 
groat errors have been committed. Our fathers 
erred by permitting decisive moments to pass, by 
neglecting the warnings of experience, and misin- 
tei-preting the lessons of histoiy. Sometimes, too, 
they erred by employing palliatives, by indulging 
delusive hopes, by casting lingering looks behind 
when they should have fixed their eyes firmly on 
the steep and rugged path before. 

And have we not erred where they erred, and 
even more than they ? Why have we not an 
army of a million of men, but that we permitted 
the blood that rushed in indignant protest to the 
cheek of every true American at the sound of the 
first gun against Sumter to utter its protest in 
vain ? If it was a gross error in them to raise 
three months' men and nine months' men, instead 
of men for the war, what does it become in us, 
with their example, written in wasted blood and 
protracted suffering, before our eyes ? If it was 
madness in them to dream of reconciliation after 
Lexington and Bunker Hill, what shall we say of 
those who still continue to talk of peace without 
victory after Bull Run and Fredericksburg ? If 
they failed to apply justly the lessons of history, 
what shall we say who, with the additional lessons 
of three new generations before us, have repeated 



440 LECTURE XII. 

all their mistakes, and not contented with repeat- 
ing, have enriched them by still greater mistakes 
of our own ? 

Of these peculiar errors of ours, I will give hut 
one example. When our fathers took up arms 
against England, they were in many respects like 
men groping in the dark. The example of the 
United Provinces was almost the only modern 
example to which they could have recourse ; and 
I need not tell you — what your profound and 
eloquent Motley has shown — how unlike the 
two wars were in their causes, in their vicissi- 
tudes, and in the character both of the two coun- 
tries and the two people. The record of this 
groping of our fathers is given act by act and 
almost day by day in the letters of Washington 
and his officers. There is scarce an error that we 
have committed which is not pointed out and illus- 
trated in that exhaustless mine of administrative 
wisdom. Had our statesmen studied the corre- 
spondence of Washington with half the attention 
with which they have studied the ephemeral effu- 
sions of party zeal, they would never have made 
shipwreck, as so many of them have done, on the 
shoals and quicksands which he saw with so clear 
an eye, and marked out with so firm a hand. To 
neiilect his warning; was to undervalue his wis- 
dom ; and what an Amei'ican becomes when he 
loses his reverence for Washington, an anecdote, 
for the authenticity of which I can vouch, will tell 



CONCLUSION. 441 

jon better than any words of mine. I have said 
he ; but the reverence which I speak of Avould fall 
very short of its office if the sentiment were con- 
fined to man, — and the subject of my story is a 
woman. 

In the summer of 1861 an eminent artist was 
showing his studio to a party of ladies and gentle- 
men. Of all his treasures, that which he valued 
most was an orderly-book which had once belonged 
to Washington, and many pages of which were 
written in that firm, bold hand which every Amer- 
ican instantly recognizes as that of the father of his 
country. As he was opening it, he heard a re- 
mark from one of the company, which sounded 
so strangely to his ears that he could not persuade 
himself that he had heard aright. 

" What were you saying, madam ? " he asked. 

" I am saying that I am tired of these exagger- 
ated praises of that cold-blooded man." 

That lady is now at Richmond, presiding over 
those circles in which the men who would build 
their republic on the corner-stone of slavery do 
reverence to their Washington. 

How, then, did our fathers conquer? They 
conquered by perseverance, by refusing to sheathe 
the sword until the purpose for which they drew 
it had been fully accomplished. They conquered 
by endurance, accepting, if not always cheei-fully, 
yet with a wise submission, the consequences ot 
their acts. They conquered by faitb —faith in 
19* 



442 LECTURE XII. 

their cause as the cause of humanity, and faith in 
their leader as God's chosen instrtunent. 

And by perseverance, endurance, and faith, we 
too shall conquer, — not this year indeed, nor per- 
haps even in the next, — but conquer we must, if, 
believing, as they believed, that our cause is the 
cause of religion and humanity, we too make our 
faith manifest by firm, consistent, and resolute ac- 
tion ; sustaining and encouraging each other, meet- 
ing with cheerful greetings, speaking warmly of 
our hopes, and only so much of our fears as may 
be needed to infuse that wise caution which makes 
the accomplishment of hope sure, and repeating to 
ourselves and to each other the inspiring words of 
our great poet : — 

" Sail on, ship of state ! 
Sail on, Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears. 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breatliless on thy fate ! 
We know what Master laid thy keel, 
Wliat workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 
Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
'T is of the wave and not the rock ; 
'T is but the flapping of the sail, 
And not a rent made by the gale ! 
In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 
In spite of false lights on the shore. 



CONCLUSION. 443 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears. 
Are all with thee, — are all with thee ! " 



APPENDIX. 



CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE. 

luOO. Canada settled by the French. 

1607. Virginia settled by the English. 

1614. The Dutch settle at Manhadoes (New York). 

1 620. The Puritans, under Brewster, Carver, and Bradford, land 

at Plymouth, December 22 (N. S.), 1620. 

1623. Dover, New Hampshire, settled. 

1634. Maiyland settled. 

1635. Connecticut settled. 

1636. Rhode Island settled. 

1642. House of Commons exempts the produce and commerce 

of the Colonies from taxation or duties. 

1643. Swedish settlements in Pennsylvania and Delaware. 

" First Union, — confederacy of Massachusetts, Plymouth, 
Connecticut, and New Haven, for mutual protection. 

" Free trade between the Colonies and mother country. 

" First iron works established by John Winthrop, Jr. and 
his partners. 

1650. North Carolina settled. 

1651. First Navigation Act to secure transportation to English 

ships, by the Parliament of the Commonwealth. 
1660. Navigation Act confirmed and enlarged by the govern 

nient of the Restoration. 
1664. New Jersey settled. 
1670. South Carolina settled. 
1681. William Penn in Pennsylvania. 
1684. Massachusetts deprived of its charter. 
1686. December 20. Ari'ival of Andros. 

1690. First issue of paper money. 

" First Congress meets at New York. 

1691. New York declaration of rights and privileges. 

1692. New Charter of Massachusetts. 



446 APPENDIX. 

1692. Act of Gcnei-cal Court against aids, taxes, &c., without 
consent of General Court. 
" Rlioclc Island and Connecticut resume their charters. 

1745. First capture of Louisburg. 

1747. Press-gang in Boston, — consequent tumult and resist- 
ance. 

1750. Act of Parliament encouraging the exportation by the 
colonies of pig and bar ii'on, but forbidding the erec- 
tion of rolling and slitting mills, the making of steel, 
&c., &c. 

1752. New Style adopted. 

" Franklin proves the identity of lightning and electricity. 

1753. French and Indian war (old French war). 
" Washington's journey to St. Pierre. 

1759. Wolfe takes Quebec. 

1761. Otis's plea against writs of assistance. 

1763. Peace of Paris. 

" Laws of trade rigoi'ously enforced. Navy employed to 

suppress smuggling. 
" Direct taxation planned. 
" Controversy between Apthorp and Mayhew concerning 

the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 

Foreign Parts. 

1764. Otis publishes his "Rights of the British Colonies as 

serted and proved." 

1765. March. Stamp Act passed. Patrick Henry's Virginia 

Rcsohitious. 
" October. Congress meets at New York. 
" John Adams publishes his dissertation on the Canon and 

Feudal Law. 

1766. March. Stamp Act repealed. 

1767. Townshend's tax-bill. 

" Dickinson publishes the Farmer's Letters 

1768. September. Gage ordered to Boston. 
1770. March 5. Boston Massacre. 

1773. December. Boston Tea-party. 

1774. September. First Continental Congress meets at Phila 

delphia. 
\ " September. Gage fortifies Boston Neck. 

War of Independence 

1775. April 19. Battle of Lexington. 

" May 10. Second Continental Congress meets. 
•' " Ticonderoga captured. 



CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE. 447 

1775. June 15. "Washington appointed Commander-in-Chief. 
" " 17. Battle of Bunker Hill. 

" November 29. Congress appoints a Committee of Se- 
cret Correspondence. 
" December 31. Montgomery killed in the attack on 
Quebec. 

1776. Januaiy. Two first cantos of MacFingal published. 

Paine's Common Sense. 
" March. Silas Deane sent to France as Commercial 

Agent. 
" March 17. British evacuate Boston. 
" May 6. John Adams brings forward his resolution for 

the establishment of State governments. 
" May 10. Resolution passed. 
" " 15. Preamble added. 

" June 7. "Resolutions for Independency" moved. 
" June 10. Committee appointed to draft the Declaration. 
" " 28. British land and sea forces under Clinton and 

Parker attack Fort Moultrie and are repulsed. 
" July 2. Independence resolved. 

" " 4. Declai'ation signed by Hancock and Thompson. 

" August 27. Battle of Long Island. 
" October 28. Battle of White Plains. 
" November 16. Fall of Fort Washington. 
" December 8. Washington retreats across the Delaware. 
" " 12. Congress adjourns to Baltimore. 

" " 19. First number of Paine's Crisis. 

" " 21. Franklin reaches Paris. 

" " 26. Capture of Hessians at Trenton. 

1777. January 3. Battle of Princeton. 
" June. Arrival of Lafayette. 

" August 16. Battle of Bennington. 

" September 11. Battle of the Brandywine. 

" " 19. First Battle of Stillwater. 

" October 7. Second Battle of Stillwater. 

" " 14. Battle of Germantown. 

" " 17. Surrender of Burgoyne. 

" December 1. Steuben arrives at Portsmouth, N. H. 

1778. February 6. Treaty with France. 

" April 8. John Adams arrives at Paris as Commissioner; 

&c. 
" June 28. Battle of Monmouth. 
" July. Massacre of Wyoming. 
" August. Expedition to Rhode Island. 
" " 29. Battle of Tiverton Heights. 



448 APPENDIX. 

1778. November. Massacre at Cherry Valley. 

1779. March 3. Battle of Briar Creek. 

" February and July. Tryon's expeditions. 

" June and July. Spain takes part in the war against 

England. 

" July 15. Capture of Stony Point. 

" " 31. Sullivan begins his march against the Indians. 

" September 27. John Jay appointed Minister to Spain. 

" October 9. Siege of Savannah. 
" " 15. Sullivan arrives at Easton, Penn. 

1780. May 12. Surrender of Charleston. 
" " 29. Battle of Waxhaw Creek. 
« June 23. Battle of Springfield. 

" July 10. Arrival of French fleet and army. 

" July 9 and August 1. Convention for armed neutrality 

between Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. 

" August 6. Battle of Hanging Rock. 
" " 16. First Battle of Camden. • 

" September. Arnold's treason discovered. 

■■' October 2. Execution of Andre'. 
" " 7. Battle of King's Mountain. 

" " 14. Greene appointed to the command of the 

Southern army. 

" December 19. Francis Dana sent to St. Petersburgh. 
" " 20. England declares war against Holland. 

1781. January 1. Mutiny of the Pennsylvania line. 
" " 17. Battle of the Cowpens. 

" January and February. Greene's operations in Carolina 

and retreat across the Dan. 

" March 15. Battle of Guilford Court House. 

" April 25. Battle of Hobkirk's Hill. 

" September 8. Battle of Eutaw Springs. 

" October 19. Surrender of Coruwallis. 

1782. Treaty with Holland. 

" November 30. Provisional articles of Peace signed at 
Paris. 

1783. April 19. Cessation of hostilities. 

" September 3. Definitive treaty of peace. 

" October 18. Proclamation disbanding the army. 

" November 25. Evacuation of New York. 

" December 4. Washington's farewell. 



AMERICAN COLONIAL TRADE. 



449 



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450 



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452 



APPENDIX. 



I 



TABLE n. 

List of General Officers at the Commencement and Close of 
the Revolutionary War. 

FIRST CONTINENTAL ARMY, 1775. 

Commander-in- Chief. 





State. 


Date of Commis. 


Gbobge Washington, 


. . Virginia, . . . . 
Major- Generals. 


June 15, 


1775. 


Artemas "Ward, . . . 


. Massachusetts, . . 


June 17, 


1775, 


Charles Lee, . . . 


. Virginia, . . . 


do. 17, 


1775. 


Philij) Schuyler, . . 


. New York, . 


do. 19, 


1775. 


Israel Putnam, . . 


. Connecticut, 


do. 19, 


1775. 


Brigadier- Generals. 






Seth Pomeroy, . . 


. Massachusetts, . 


June 22, 


1775. 


Richard Montgomery, 


. New York, . . 


do. 22, 


1775. 


David "VVooster, . . 


. Connecticut, . 


do. 22, 


1775. 


"William Heath, . . 


. Massachusetts, . 


do. 22, 


1775. 


Joseph Spencer, • 


. Connecticut, 


do. 22, 


1775. 


John Thomas, . . 


. Massachusetts, . 


do. 22, 


1775. 


John Sullivan, . . 


. New Hampshire, 


do. 22, 


1775. 


Nathaniel Greene, . 


. Rhode Island, . 
Adjutant- General. 


do. 22, 


1775. 


Horatio Gates, . . 


. Virginia, 


June 17, 


177.5. 



CONTINENTAL ARMY IN 1783. 



Commander-in- Chief. 
State. 
Geoege "Washington, . . Virginia, . . 



Israel Putnam, 
Horatio Gates, 
"W'illiam Heath 
Nathaniel Greene, . 
AVilliara Lord Stirlin 



Major-Generals. 
. Connecticut, 
. . Virginia, 
. Massachusetts, 
. Rhode Island, 
. New Jersey, . 



Date of Commis. 
June 15, 1775. 



June 19, 1775. 
May 16, 1776. 
Aug. 9, 1776 
do. 9, 1776 
Feb. 19, 1777 



LIST OF GENERAL OFFICERS. 



453 



Arthur St. Clair, 


. . . Pennsylvania, 


. Feb. 


19, 


1777 


Benjamin Lincoln, 


. . . Massachusetts, 


. do. 


19, 


1777 


M. de La Fayette, 


. . . France, . . 


. July 


31, 


1777 


Robert Howe,. . 


. . North Carolina, 


, Oct. 


20, 


1777 


Alexander McDougall, . New York, . 


. do. 


20, 


1777 


Baron Steuben, . 


. Prussia, . 


. May 


5, 


1778 


William Smallwood, . . Maryland, . 


. Sept. 


15, 


1780 


William jMoultrie,' 


. South Cai-olina, 


. Nov. 


14, 


1780 


Henry Knox, 


. . . Massachusetts, 


. do. 


15, 


1780 


Le Chevalier du Portail, . France, . . 


. do. 


16, 


1780 




Brigadier- Generals. 








James Clinton, . 


. . . New York, . 


. Aug. 


9, 


1776 


Laehlan Mcintosh, 


. . . Georgia, . . 


. Sept. 


16, 


1776 


John Patterson, . 


. Massachusetts, 


. Feb. 


21, 


1777 


Anthony Wayne, 


. . . Pennsylvania, 


. do. 




1777 


George Weeden, . 


. . . Virginia, 


. do. 




1777 


P. Muhlenberg:, . 


. . . Virginia, 


. do. 




1777 


George Clinton, . 


. . • New York, . 


. Mar. 


25, 


1777 


Edward Hand, , 


. . . Pennsylvania, 


. Apri: 


1, 


1777 


Charles Scott, 


. Virginia, 


. do. 


2, 


1777 


Jedidiah Huntingtc 


n, . . Connecticut, 


. ]\Iay 


12, 


1777 


John Stark, . . 


. . . New Hampshire 


, . Oct. 


4, 


1777 


Jethro Sumner, . 


. . . North Carolina, 


. Jan. 


9, 


1779 


Isaac Huger, . . 


. . . South Carolina, 


. do. 


9, 


1779 


Mordecai Gist, . 


. Maryland, . 


. do. 


9. 


1779 


William Irvine, . 


. Pennsylvania, 


. Jan. 


9, 


1779 


Daniel Moi'gan, . 


. . . Virginia, . . 


. Oct. 


13, 


1780 


Moses Hazen, 


. 


June 


29, 


1781 


0. H. Williams, 


. , . Maryland, . 


• ^I'ly 


9, 


1782 


John Greaton, . 


. . . Massachusetts, 


. . Jan. 


7, 


1783 


Rufus Putnam, . 


. . . Massachusetts, 


. do. 


7, 


1783. 


Elias Dayton, . . 


New Jersey, . 


. do. 


7, 


1783. 



Major-General le Chevalier du Portail, Chief Engineer. 

Major-General Baron Steuben, Inspector- General. 

Colonel Walter Stewart, Inspector of the Northern Department, 

Brigadier-General Hand, Adjutant-General. 

Colonel Timothy Pickering, Quartermaster-Generah 

John Cockran, Esq., Director- General of Hospitals. 

Thomas Edwards, Judge- Advocate-General, 

John Pierce, Esq., Paijmaster- General. 



454 



APPENDIX. 







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EXPENSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 455 



TABLE IV. 

Showivg the Force that each of the Thirteen States supplied 
for the Regular A7'mi/, from 1775 to 1783, inclusive. 



[From Niles's Register, July 31, 1830.] 



New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, 
Ehodc Island, 
Connecticut, 
New York, . 
New Jersey, . 
Pennsylvania, 



Kegulars. 
12,497 
67,907 
5,908 
31,939 
17,781 
10,726 
25,678 





Regulars. 


Delaware, . . . 


. 2,386 


Maryland, . . . 


. 13,912 


Virginia, .... 


. 26,678 


North Carolina, 


. 7,263 


South Carolina, 


. 6,417 


Georgia, .... 


. 2,679 



Total, 



231,791. 



TABLE V. 

Expense of the Revolutionary War. 

It is not possible to ascertain with certainty the expenses of 
the Revolutionary War. An estimate was made, in 1790, by the 
Register of the Treasury, of which the following is a general ab- 
stract : — 

The estimated amount of the expenditures of '^°^^- ^otho. 

1775 and 1776 is, in specie, 20,064,666 66 

1777, 24,986,646 85 

1778, 24,289,438 26 

1779, 10,794,620 65 

1780, 3,000,000 00 

1781, 1,942,465 30 

1782, 3,632,745 85 

1783, 3,226,583 45 

To Nov. 1, 1784, 548,525 63 

Forming an amount total of $92,485,693 15 

The foregoing estimates, being confined to actual treasury 
payments, are exclusive of the debts of the TTnited States, which 



456 APPENDIX. 

were incurred, at various periods, for the support of the war, and 
should be talcen into a general view of the expense thereof, viz. : — 

Dolls. OOths. 

Army debt, upon eommissioncrs' certificates, . 11,080,576 1 

For supplies furnished by the citizens of the 
several States, and for which certificates were 
issued by the commissioners, 3,723,625 20 

For supplies furnished in the quartermaster, com- 
missary, hospital, clothing, and marine depart- 
ments, exclusive of the foraging, .... 1,159,170 5 

For supplies, on accounts settled at the treasury, 
and for which certificates were issued by the 
register, 744,638 49 

$16,708,009 75 

Note. — The loan-office debt formed a part of the 
treasury expenditures. 

The foreign expenditures, civil, military, naval, 
and contingencies, amount, by computation, to 
the sum of 5,000,000 00 

The expenditures of the several States, from the 
commencement of the war to the establishment 
of peace, cannot be stated with any degree of 
certainty, because the accounts thereof remain 
to be settled ; but, as the United States have 
granted certain sums for the relief of the several 
States, to be funded by the general government, 
therefore estimate the total amount of said as- 
sumption, 21,500,000 00 

Estimated expense of the war, specie, . . $135,693,703 00 



TABLE VI. 

Emissions of Continental Money. 

The advances made from the treasury were principally in a 
paper medium, which was called Continental money, and which in 
a short time depreciated : the specie value of it is given in tlio 



CONTINENTAL MONEY. 



4D7 



foregoing estimate. The advances made at the treasuiy of the 
United States in Continental money, in old and new emissions, 
are estimated as follows, viz. : — 



Old Emission. 

Dollars. SOtha. 

In 1776, 20,064,666 66 

1777, ...'.. 26,426,333 1 

1778, 66,965,269 34 

1779, 149,703,856 77 

1780, ..... 82,908,320 47 

1781, 11,408,095 00 

$357,476,541 45 



New Emiasion. 
DoUnre. goths. 



. 891,236 80 
. 1,179,249 00 

$2,070,485 80 



By comparing this amount of paper money, issued during the 
Revolution, with the above estimate of tlie total expense in specie 
dollars, it will be seen that the average depreciation of the whole 
amount issued was nearly two thirds of its original value. 



TABLE VII. 

Tahle of Depreciation of Continental Money. 



January 
February 
March 
April 
May . 
June . 
July . 
August 
September 
(October . 
November 
December 



1779. 
7, 8, 9 . . 
10 . . . 
10, 11 . . 
12^, 14, 16,22 
22-24 . . 
22, 20. 18 . 
18, 19, 20 . 
26 . 
20-28 
30 . 
32-45 
45-38 



1780. 
40-45 
45-55 
60-05 
60 . 
60 . 
60 . 
60-65 
6.5-75 
75 

75-80 
80-100 
100 



1781. 
100 

100-120 
120-135 
13.5-200 
200-500 
On tlie 31s' 

of May i!. 

ceased to 

circulate. 



20 



ioB APPENDIX. 

TABLE ym. 

State Expenditures and Balances. 



J 



States. 



N. Hamp., 

Mass. 

R. Island, 

Conn. 

New York, 

N. .Ier.?ey, 

Penn. 

Delaware, 

Maryland, 

Virginia, 

N.Carolina, 

S.Carolina, 

Georgia, 



Sums 

allowed for 

Expenditures. 



4,278,015, 

17,964,61.3 

3,782,974, 

9,285,737, 

7,179,982, 

5,342,770, 

14,137,076, 

839,319. 

7,568,145, 

19,085,981. 

10,427,586 

11,523,299. 

2,993,800. 



Sums charged 
for advances 
by United 
States, in- 
cluding the 
assumption 
of State 
Debts. 



1,082,954.02 
6,258,880.03 
1,977,608.46 
3,436,244,92 
1,960,031.78 
1,343.321.52 
4,690,686.22 
229,898.98 
1,592,631.38 
3,803,416.51 
3,151,358.13 
5,780,264.20 
1,415,328.86 



Expendi- 
tures, ex- 
cluding all 
advanoes. 



3,195,061 

11,705,733 

1,805,366 

5,829,493 

5,219,951 

3,999,449 

9,446,390 

609,421 

5,975,514 

15,282,865 

7,276,228 

5,743,035 

1,578,472 



Balances | Balances 
found due found due 

from the to the 
United United 
States. Stall's. 



$ I 

75,055: 

1,248,801 

299,61ll 

619,1211 

49,030 



2,074,846 

76,709 
612,428 
151,640 
100,879 
501,082 



1,205,978 
19,988 



ADDRESS TO GENERAL GREENE. 



(See page 350.) 

Camp Southern Armt, 
High Hills, Santee, 20th August, 1781. 

The subscribers, commissioued officers serving in the 
Southern Army, beg leave to represent to the Honorable Ma- 
jor-General Greene, That they are informed, not only by 
current reports, but by official and acknowledged authority, 
that, contrary to express stipulations in the capitulation of 
Charleston, signed the 12th day of May, 1780, a number of 
very respectable inhabitants of that town and others were 
confined on board prison-ships and sent to St. Augustine, and 
other places distant from their homes, families, and friends. 
That notwithstanding the general cartel fettled for exchange 
of prisoners in the Southern Department, and agreed to the 
3(1 day of May last, several officei-s of militia and other gen- 



ADDRESS TO GENERAL GREENE. 459 

tlemen, subjects of the United States, have been and still 
are detained in captivity. 

That the commanding officer of the British forces in 
Charleston, regardless of the principles and even of the ex- 
istence of the said cartel, hath not only presumed to discrim- 
inate between the militia and other subjects of the United 
States, prisoners of war, partially determining who were and 
who were not objects of exchange, but hath even dared to 
execute, in the most ignominious manner. Colonel Haynes of 
the militia of the State of South Carolina, a gentleman ami- 
able in his character, respectable in his connections, and of 
eminent abilities : and this violent act, as cruel as it was un- 
necessary and unjust, we are informed, is attempted to be 
justified by the imputed crime of treason, founded upon the 
unfortunate sufferer's having in circumstances peculiarly dis- 
tressing, accepted what is called a Protection from the Brit- 
ish government. 

If every inhabitant of this country, who, being bound by 
the tender ties of family connections, and fettered by do- 
mestic embarrassments, is forced to submit to the misfortune 
of falling into the hands of the enemy, must therefore be- 
come- subject to such inhuman authority, and if such subjects 
are liable to be tried by martial law for offences against the 
civil government of the British nation, their situation Is truly 
deplorable. But we conceive forms of protection that are 
granted one day, and retracted, violated, disclaimed, or de- 
serted the next, can enjoin no such condition or obligation 
upon persons who accept tliem. We consider the citizens 
of the United States of America as independent of the gov- 
ernment of Great Britain, as those of Great Britain are of 
the United States or of any other sovereign power ; and 
think it just that indulgences and severities to prisoners of 
war ought to be reciprocal. We, therefore, with submission, 
beg leave to recommend that a strict inquiry be made into 
the several things mentioned, and if ascertained, that you 
will be pleased to retaliate in the most effectual manner by 



400 APPENDIX. 

a similar treatment of British subjects, wliich are or may be 
in your power. 

Permit us to add, that -while we seriously lament the ne- 
cessity of such a severe expedient, and commiserate the suf- 
ferings to which individuals will necessarily be exposed, we 
are not unmindful that such a measure may in its. conse- 
quences involve our own lives in additional dangers;, but we 
had rather forego temporary distinctions and commit our- 
selves to the most desperate situations, than prosecute this 
just and necessary war upon terms so unequal and so dis- 
honorable. 

Signatures, &c. 



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